HiME of a Forgotten Realm
by Emetheria
Summary: Being entirely reworked, no ETA on a new chapter. Since I am rewriting the old ones. But it will come eventually...
1. Captured

**Chapter 1 – **An Odd Turn of Events

Natsuki Kuga sat alone in a crowded tavern, in a corner away from the hustle and bustle of the common patrons. At the moment she was immersed in the odd way the grains along the wooden table snaked every which way. It was weird, and she had never seen anything like it. To anyone who might have watched her, would swear she had tipped back a few to many ales, which might explain why she sat alone. Most people did not like being around a drunk. Though in her case it was usually the opposite, at least with the male crowd.

But the fact was that she was as far from drunk as possible. In fact, it was impossible for her to get drunk at all. One of the few drawbacks of her heritage. She wished she could have been able to be able to be downright stupid and forget everything, at least for one night. Though she supposed that the trade off of not having to struggle with the morning after, like so many often complained after drinking with her, was worth it. And it also let her make a few coin from those poor human sods who thought they had stomachs that rivaled a dwarves.

To put it shortly, Natsuki was an elf. One of the few left in existence. Though to be more precise, she was only half-elf. The other half being human, and it was the reason she was here trying so desperately to drown himself in alcohol rather than dancing around without a care in the furthest depths of some forest. Elves were an odd sort. Sure they preached for the goodness in everything, and worked hard to preserve the balances of the world. But they did so hidden away from all, and gods forbid if you asked them their opinions on the race of humans. They would rant all day long. Natsuki had to wonder if they even realized how contradictory they really were.

So because of her human half, the elves hated her, and because of her elven half she had to spend her eternity in endless travel. Because to humans, all magical folk were the stuff they told their kids at night to help them get to sleep, or to scare them into behaving, whichever happened to be needed at the time. Since she had reached the point in her life where living for a hundred years equaled close to about a single year for a human she very well could not stay in one place for any particular amount of time. People would start to notice, and questions would be asked, questions Natsuki would rather not take the time to answer. But love for others was something she had forsaken long ago. Which helped ease the emotional burdens that came with living your life alone.

Not wanting to dwell any further on morbid thoughts, Natsuki drained the current contents of her wooden mug. The liquor was obviously watered down but she didn't complain as the fluid drained down her throat. The ale gone, and ready to leave, and continue her travels, Natsuki unknotted a small rope cord that dangled from one of her pants belt loops. As soon as the lax knot was undone, she pulled up on the cord, and up with it came a small velvet pouch. The pouch swung noiselessly through the air. A warning flag sprang up immediately. This certain bag should never have swung around without a sound. It was her money bag. If it did, that could only mean one thing. She was broke.

As she snatched the bag out of mid-air she clenched her hand around it tightly, and her fears were realized. There was nothing in the bag, not even one measly copper coin. She was pennyless, with a bar tab. That never meant good, and also meant that she would have to work in order pay off her debt, and from past experiences that was never good. Especially so for a woman like herself. Sure the thought of just skipping out on the tab was the first thing that popped into her head. But since she was part elf, and part human, she had a very screwed up sense of justice. Sure she could steal, and kill without remorse, but only as long as the person in question had deserved it. Instigating such acts by herself was far to evil a thought to wrap her head around. And since this particular tavern keep had been good to her this evening, she had no desire to betray that. But then, like a gift from the gods, she was given a way out.

"Wha' migh' be 'he problem lass." A males voice brought the girl out of her trance like state.

Natsuki looked over to find a middle age man whose teeth and face definitely could have seen better days, the perfect mark. She blessed every god she could think of at this moment, "What is it?" She asked gruffly, trying to not break character.

"Well...you see mi and 'he boys over dere." He motioned to a table surrounded by six other, not very good looking, men all who were staring their direction grinning like idiots. Natsuki sighed, whenever alcohol was involved, men seemed to be totally idiots. It was the same everywhere she went, but at this particular moment she was somewhat glad for it.

"We 'ere wonderin' if you migh' like ta join us." The man finished his previous statement and tried to put on a tone of seductiveness to his voice though with his terrible speech failed miserably and to make matters worse placed his hand on Natsuki's mid back.

Fighting the urge to take the of the short sword that was strapped hidden away beneath her long baggy sleeves, and shove it a certain place where sharp objects should never be shoved up Natsuki responded rather calmly, "I'm going to have to pass." She hoped he would take the bait.

"Ah, come on lassy, don' be like tha'." The man said not backing down, exactly what she wanted. He then proceeded to move his hand in small slow circles.

"I said no." She reiterated forcefully, even if this was all an act on her part. She could not keep her anger in check for much longer.

"Ahhh, I se', scared eh? 'Ell don' be little lady, I promise e'll be gentle." The man said as he slid his hand down to the Natsuki's butt giving it a playful little squeeze. Natsuki let out a surprised yelp, her face turning a slight red and clenched her fists so hard her nails were almost digging into her skin. It was time to end the charade.

"Why are humans so stupid." She mumbled through still clenched teeth, her voice taking on an eerie calm.

"Wha' was tha'?" The man said through a stupid grin.

"I said." Clearly enunciating each word her voice getting louder and angrier with each word uttered, "Why are you people so STUPID!" She finished with a loud scream silencing the tavern and with elven like speed quickly grabbed the back of the man's head and slammed his face into the wooden table. There was a loud crack as the man's nose impacted first, blood immediately started to flow from the broken appendage.

"Ahhh!" The man screamed in pain, and clutched his nose, "U-U-U Bish! 'ow dere u!" He screamed in rage, as he stood. As he did so, he wobbled a bit clearly drunk, which probably contributed to the fact he was able to recover so quickly after suffering a broken nose, "oo'll pay fer da'! Gi' ova here, boys. Wef go' sum 'eachin' fo 'his un here!"

On cue the five guys that had been sitting at the other table all rose in unison. Their previously stupid grins had been replaced by equally stupid anger. All five started to make their way towards Natsuki, and their hurt companion. But a loud yell from the bar stopped them.

"If your gonna fight, do it outside! I don't want blood all over my bar." The tavernkeep yelled sternly. Natsuki grinned internally. Her plan worked to perfection. Now all she had to do was to beat up a couple of drunks, and one free night of drinking was all hers.

" Fine 'hen, ge' ou'side, and u'll 'ish oo had neva been born, lil gurl." The man with the broken nose told Natsuki, and walked outside with his friends. Natsuki watched them go, and stayed seated for another second. She let out a deep breath, stood, gave her limbs a few good stretches, and followed the men out.

When she exited the door, she found the drunks standing in a small halfmoon around the tavern door. Clouds covered the night sky, and only the lights from the crystal lampposts posted at even intervals along the cobbled road illuminated the dark. As soon as she left the tavern the men instantly became aggressive.

"So, u 'hink 'hat u can act howeva u wan' eh? E'll see abou' tha'." The man with the broken nose started. In the time he had been out of Natsuki's sight, he had taken his poor excuse for a shirt off, tying it around the lower half of his face to absorb some of the bleeding.

"Hmph. I think it's an improvement, myself." Natsuki retorted with a shrug. She hoped she could get these guys even madder than they seemed to already be. In her experiences, those who fought mad fought stupid, which just made things so much easier.

"O' ya. E'll see 'ow big u 'alk after e're dun wit u. Git er boys!" On the man's command his five lackys started to make their way towards Natsuki slowly. Each chuckled to themselves, obviously pleased at the work they were going to be doing. Or at least the work they were going to try and do.

As they made their way towards the halfling, Natsuki reached up her sleeve, ready to withdraw her shortsword. She preferred the art of surprise, and waited for the men to reach her before she made any sort of maneuver. It was much more enjoyable that way.

But before either side could make a move to attack, a voice called out from the sidelines, "What is going on here?!"

Both sides were startled at the voice, and both turned to find it's owner. Natsuki was shocked to see a small contingent of fully armored knights standing with weapons drawn, and ready. At their head was a blond woman, carrying a frightfully large morning star.

"Gah, eet's the knigh's boys, book eet!" The leader howled. His lackys did not need to be told twice, and they all ran the opposite way away from the knights.

Natsuki sighed, withdrawing her hand from her sleeve. She had been looking forward to the fight, and the chance to relieve some steam. But she supposed this way worked out to. At least she would not have to worry about bruising her knuckles, or cleaning blood of her sword.

"You there!" The blond woman called, and the rest of the knights moved into action, surrounding Natsuki, "Not gonna run away like your friends, huh?"

"W-What?" Natsuki exclaimed, "They weren't my friends!"

"Hah! A likely story. Do you take me as some sort of cool?!"

"Cool?" Natsuki repeated cocking an eye, confused.

"I think you mean fool, Haruka." A third voice made itself known. Behind the blond woman was a mousy looking brunette. She carried a yew staff, and was dressed in a simple brown robe with a pair of horn rimmed glasses, the staple dressings of a mage.

"That's what I said!" Haruka snapped at the mage, "Now. You there, hold your arms out!" She then barked at Natsuki.

The halfling did not comply right away, "Don't I get a chance to explain myself?" To be accused without having the chance to prove her innocence seemed a bit backwards to her. Plus if she was to be searched, the hidden short sword would not help her case. And terrible misunderstandings were likely to ensue.

"No, potential criminals don't get any sights. Now hold out your arms! "

"Rights, Haruka." The mage behind her, corrected again.

"That's what I said!" The blond woman snapped again, "Now hold out your arms, and submit to be searched. If you truly are innocent, you should have nothing to hide."

Natsuki looked around for a possible exit, but found none. The knights stood shoulder to shoulder, around the entire street. Only a fight, or magic would get her out of this situation. But neither would apply to here. Knights were the epitome of justice in human lands, going against them was a no-no to her code. Plus, it would put her on bad terms with the city, and she would rather not be barred from one of the largest cities in the realm, which also happened to be one of her favorites. So, grudgingly she held out her arms.

Immediately Haruka grabbed Natsuki's wrists, and found the hilt of her short sword, "What's this? A congealed weapon?! Assassin! Arrest this woman!"

"Concealed." The mousy woman corrected the blond again.

"A-Assassin?!" Natsuki yelled in disbelief, yanking her arm out of Haruka's grasp. She backed up to the wall of the tavern, "I'm no assassin! Let me explain, dammit!"

"There's no need to explain anything, only an assassin would carry around a hidden weapon. I hope you enjoy your hell! Yukino, subdue her!"

"It's cell Haruka." The brunette corrected yet again, moving in front of the blond. Natsuki could not believe the turn of events, and gritted her teeth trying to come up with a strategy. In her haste, she withdrew her sword, getting into her fighting stance. Which in hindsight probably only made her truly look guilty.

Before she could do or say anything further, there was a bright flash of light, and she found herself suddenly battling drowsiness. Her legs failed her, causing her to slump back against the wall, and slide to the ground. She was familiar with the sleeping spell, and tried to counteract it with a spell of her own. But the spell words did not come, it was like they were on the tip of her tongue but would not go any farther. Another effect of the spell. She was stuck. The only thing she could do was submit to unconsciousness.


	2. Chapter 3

Enlisted?-Chapter 3

"Ugh..." Natsuki groaned as she came too. Cracking her eyes she was greeted with an overbearing light and was forced to close them again. Her head ached fiercely and she felt too tired to move even an inch. She felt metal around her wrists and when she was able too took a look at the large manacles that adorned her arms.

Unable too get up, let alone move any part of her body Natsuki craned her neck around to get a better view of her surroundings. She was in a cramped four walled cell, a small unbarred window let in a small amount of light but not enough to illuminate the entire cage. A large windowless door sat in the middle of the wall opposite of where Natsuki was lying. Letting out a sigh Natsuki resigned to her fate, at least until she gained enough strength to do something and looked at the ceiling for a few moments before falling back to sleep.

The sound of chain boots against the stone prison floor woke Natsuki from her slumber. The sun light that filtered through the window had turned into a dim moonlight. She could hear the faint sounds of two men talking outside the door too her cell.

"H-Hey, do you think this is a good idea? The captain said that the prisoner was to be fully secluded and anyone that was found breaking the rule would be discharged." A high-pitched voice asked, clearly nervous.

"We'll be fine, she's still going to be unconscious, remember? That stuff the captain uses is vicious, it_always_ takes at least week for someone to recover from that stuff." A lower voice replied, Natsuki noticed it was somewhat annoyed, "And besides, it's only me and you in this place at the moment, I'm not going to be telling the captain, are you?"

"N-no, but what if the rumors are true?"

"What rumors?" A pause, "Oh...oh, don't tell me you believe those stupid magic rumors." The lower voice rhetorically asked followed by a jangle of keys, "There's no way in the abyss that that chick is a mage."

"Y-Yeah, but you were there too. We both saw what happened when Edwin touched one of those weird looking swords. I mean...it's been three days and he's still encased in that ice."

_Three Days? I've been out for three days? _

"Hmph." The sound of a key entering a lock, "Damn not this one." A pause, "Hell, an enchanted blade isn't that hard to find as long as you have some money."

"B-But..."

"Enough! If your just going to keep complaining and thinking of excuses then go away. Gods forbid." Lower voice responded angrily

There was silence except for the rattling of keys entering and leaving the lock for several minutes.

"Dammit, why does the warden have so many damn keys?!" Lower voice yelled to no one in particular then let out a sigh.

"How did you get the keys anyway?" High-pitched voice asked

"Alcohol." Lower voice responds simply, fitting another key in the lock. The sound of the lock unlocking echoed through the small room and was followed by a cheerful yell from lower voice.

Natsuki watched as the door inched open trying to be silent, though the rusty hinges proved otherwise and despite the careful motion a loud and piercing screech echoed throughout the prison floor. Natsuki could hear one of the men curse though she couldn't tell which it was. She watched as the two men entered the room, in the dim moonlight Natsuki could only make out that both of them wore a simple chain-mail suit of armor and each had a hand and a half sword strapped to their waists. Neither armor nor sword were particularly well polished so Natsuki assumed they had to be of a lower rank.

The darkness gave Natsuki an element of surprise, the two men thought she was still unconscious and didn't pay attention to her. So when one of the men came close to her she lashed out with one of her feet catching him in the gut and knocking the shocked knight into the other sending them both to the ground. Going with the momentum of the kick Natsuki slid out of the stone slab that was her bed and landed in a crouching position. However the poison was still lingering in her system and Natsuki had to fight off the feeling of vertigo as she rose to stand. Her muscles ached and protested loudly at her sudden flurry of movement. Still, she managed to exude a calm demeanor with no trace of physical exhaustion evident.

Natsuki couldn't tell what the knights were up too, they had fallen into one of the corners of the room where the meager lighting didn't reach. However when they didn't move to stop her, she made her move. Scooping up the keys that the knights dropped she stepped out the door not leaving the knights out of her line of sight. She then quickly grabbed the handle and proceeded to slam it shut. One of the knights realizing what was going to happen tried to stand and stop Natsuki but was too far away to do anything. As soon as the door closed, the lock automatically latched into place locking the knights into the room.

"Damnit! You Bitch, open this door!!" Natsuki heard Lower Voice let out a muffled yell followed by pounding. Natsuki chuckled a little before having to catch herself from falling over.Her little stunt had left her physically drained and her peripheral vision had all but faded completely.

"Wow, You really are something you know that?" Natsuki recognized the female voice and spun around to meet the owner. However the move was a little to strenuous for her current condition and a searing pain shot up her legs, Natsuki grunted and leaned back into the wall, sliding down to the ground to alleviate the burning sensation.

"Heheh, So I guess you haven't totally recovered, that's a shame." The woman said with a chuckle.

Natsuki looked up to find, to her surprise, a girl that could not have been any older than herself standing over her with a slight smirk. The girl was garbed in armor of fine dragon scales colored in a mix of a deep black and a vibrant gold, a pair of claw like weapons dangled from her waist.

The girl knelt down to Natsuki's level and outstretched her arm, in her hand was a small crystal vial, a bright yellow liquid was contained within, "Here." she said simply pushing a strand of fiery red hair back behind her ear.

Natsuki looked at the mysterious liquid then back to the girl, "What is it?"

"An antidote." Came the simple response. Natsuki looked at the vial again but made no move to take it. The girl sighed, "Look, you can either take it or I can force it down your throat, I'm sure you'd agree that you wouldn't be able to offer much resistance. So if I were you I'd just drink it myself."

Natsuki couldn't disagree with the girl's judgment and resigned to take the vial. Undoing the stopper Natsuki gingerly took a sniff of the strange liquid and gagged. The concoction was the most fowl thing she had ever smelled. Natsuki heard the girl laugh but was too busy trying not to vomit too do anything about it.

"Sorry, I should have said something." The girl managed through her laughing fit.

Natsuki gave the girl a look that went unnoticed and swallowed her fear and drank the whole vial in one smooth gulp. Natsuki was surprised when the liquid went down rather easily and let out a silent sigh of relief. The effects of the antidote were immediately gratifying, Natsuki could feel her strength return and the pain had already vanished.

"See? That wasn't so bad was it?" The woman said with a slight grin, "Now that your all better come with me, and don't try anything funny."

Natsuki gave a small nod, she knew that there wasn't any hope for escape, especially since her arms were bound together, plus the fact that she needed to get her blades back kept the thought even farther from her mind. Natsuki tried her hand at standing and was surprised when there was no pain or vertigo. The girl had already started walking down the hall and Natsuki had to jog a little to catch up.

* * *

"H-Hey!! Captain, is that you?!" Lower Voice's yell came muffled from behind the cell door, "Captain?!" A pause, "Hey look, I know that you had expressively said that this was off limits and I'm reallllyyyy sorry. So come on, let us out, please?!"

"Caaappptainnn?!!!" Came another muffled cry followed by a lot of banging on the cell door.

* * *

Natsuki and her escort had arrived at the front gates of Fuuka keep. The large marble structure towered over the pair as well as the rest of the city. It was the first time she had gotten so close to the building seeing as it was surrounded by a the noble district which in itself was surrounded by a wall separating it from the rest of the capital and for non-nobles entry was almost impossible. It was like a city within a city.

Natsuki followed her escort through a small side entrance into the castle grounds. The pair moved quickly and silently through the deadened corridors. The inside was as ornate as the outside, the halls were lined with statues of gold and silver as well as paintings of all types. Natsuki was just about to start asking questions considering the entire trip had been spent in silence however she was unable to as her escort stopped suddenly.

"Here we are." The girl said opening a large oak door and proceeding inside.

Natsuki followed her into a small office room. Natsuki took a quick glance around the room, a large desk sat in the middle of the room a mess of papers and other assorted objects sat atop it in a sorry state. On one side of the room sat a row of bookcases all filled to the brim, a collection of dust told Natsuki that the owner did not care much for literature. It took a moment for Natsuki to spot a figure standing beside a large window that ran the length of the walls. Natsuki noticed that the woman was dressed in ceremonial armor, a cloak of a magnificent gold and trimmed with platinum lace matched her blond hair.

Natsuki's escort gave a subtle cough to gain the woman's attention, "Haruka, I've brought the prisoner as ordered."

The woman turned around a scowl on her face, "Nao, do you know how long I have been waiting, and how many times have I told you it's Commander."

"I apologize for the inconvenience _Commander_." Nao returned casually, "It's not like the prison isn't on the other side of the damn city." She added under her breath.

"What did you say captain?!"

"Nothing Ma'am."Came a militaristic answer.

"Hmph, I bet."

Natsuki watched the short exchange with slight amusement but quickly masked the smirk that had crept it's way onto her facial expression as the commander focused her attention onto Natsuki, "So this is her huh?"

"Yes, Ma'am." Nao responded simply.

"Hmm...very well, your dismissed captain." Haruka told Nao giving a little shooing motion towards the door for emphasis.

"Yes, Ma'am." Nao replied in an unenthusiastic response and with a lack luster salute then left the room.

There was a brief moment of silence as the commander gave Natsuki a once over. Natsuki noticed that the woman was sub vocalizing and wondered what she could be thinking. When no word from the other woman was uttered Natsuki started to speak.

"Would you mind telling me what's going on?" Natsuki asked irked, "Oh, and by the way I'd like you to know that I'm innocent." She added quickly.

Haruka gave Natsuki a little confused look, "Innocent? For what?" There was a slight pause, "Ohhhh, the murder? Oh, We already know that, that idiot Takeda told us everything."

"What?!" Natsuki yelled outraged, "Then why the hell am I still here?!"

"Because of those..." Haruka answered pointing. Natsuki followed her cue and looked to find her weapons standing propped up against one of the bookcases, Natsuki had to wonder how she had not noticed them before and it took all her energy to keep herself from running to them.

"So what? I get sent to jail for having some swords? I see people all the time with weapons and I'm the one to get busted?" Natsuki tried to sound as nonchalant as possible, but then remembered the conversation she overheard from the guards she had trapped earlier, "Wait?! You mean I got sent to prison because I had some enchanted weapons? You've gotta be kidding me!"

"No I am not kidding! Do you know what it would be like if we let people go willy-nilly with enchanted items? The Abyss, that's what! We knights have a job to protect the people of our country and if people are allowed to have swords that shoot out fireballs or kitchen knives that secreted acid on anything it touched, we wouldn't be able to keep the peace that is expected of us. I mean..." It was about this time that Natsuki tuned out of the one sided conversation, she had a knack for detecting speeches and an even better knack for ignoring them, her thoughts turning to anything else she could think off at the moment.

"However...I digress, now...on too the matters that you have been brought here for." Natsuki yawned as she heard Haruka finish speaking, _Finally,_she thought as she noticed that there were hints of red appearing on the horizon.

"You have been brought here because..." Haruka continued, oblivious to the fact that her speech had gone completely ignored, "You seem to have caught the interest of one who shall remain nameless at this time, though why I do not have the faintest clue." Natsuki noticed that the commander's voice had a hint of disdain to it, "However...it is not my place to question the request I have been asked of and so you are here before me to be asked..."

"Will you just say it already?" Natsuki asked impatiently.

Haruka coughed deliberately, "Yes, well. I was just getting to that thank you." Natsuki heard the commander mutter something but was unable to hear it, with another cough Haruka continued, "You are here to be asked to join our order under the rank of knight and as such all past crimes will be absolved."

"Your kidding?" Natsuki asked in disbelief, "Why the hell would I want to be some stuck up knight?"

Haruka shrugged, "It's either that or you can go back to prison."

"That's nothing short of blackmail!" Natsuki yelled in protest.

"Blackmail?!" Haruka returned in a similar loud voice, "You broke the law and your being let off the hook, it's called a pardon, a par-don, p-a-r-d-o-n."

"And I'm saying it's a stupid law in the first place!"

"Stupid?! Did you not hear a word of what I just said?! Do I have to repeat myself?"

"Oh for the love of...you know what fine. I'll do it." Natsuki finished with a sigh figuring that any further arguing would be pointless. _Besides, I can just "disappear" if need be_. Natsuki thought with an inward grin.

"Very well..." Natsuki noticed the commander give a slight frown before she turned towards her desk. "Now then..." Haruka continued opening one of the many desk's drawers, pulling out a small wooden chest. Opening the lid Natsuki watched as the other woman pulled out a simple silver choker, a single sapphire sat inlaid in the metal, and moved towards her, "Stand still." Haruka said simply, undoing the the small clasp and fastening it around Natsuki's neck before the girl had time to react.

"What the hell is this?" Natsuki questioned bringing a hand up to her neck, tracing the small jewel with her fingers.

"It's too keep you in your place." Haruka said simply returning to her desk and replacing the small chest to it's resting place.

"Excuse me?" Natsuki asked in disbelief

"You honestly didn't think that I'd let some commoner run amok in the castle grounds?" Haruka answered and sat in the chair that sat behind her desk before continuing, "That choker is enchanted to keep you out of areas you are not supposed to enter and keep you in the castle. You are still technically a prisoner until after the knight's exam so you will be treated like one albeit given a little more leeway."

"Agh...you've gotta be kidding me..." Natsuki muttered watching her hopes of escape shatter against the rocks right in front of her. It took a moment before Natsuki realized a term that she had never heard before and felt compelled to ask, "What the hell is a knight's exam?"

"What? Nao didn't tell you?" Haruka asked, her question answered with a blank look from Natsuki, "No...of course she didn't, why do I even have to ask." She muttered, "Alright...listen up because I'm not repeating myself, the knight's exam is an event we have yearly. It is too see what squires are ready to be moved into the rank of knight that they have been working for. It consists of a simple battle between a squire and a knight, you do not necessarily have to win, since it is highly unlikely that you will anyway, to be granted induction ."

"Wait...but you said I'm already a knight now, why the hell would I have to take an exam." Natsuki interrupted.

"Please...we can't have someone just show up and be granted knighthood, it would make people ask questions which we don't want, now do we? Don't worry, you won't have to worry about anything, you will be automatically accepted, though I would like to press upon the fact that you should put on a good show."

"Right..." Natsuki muttered.

"Well then." Haruka said said standing, ignoring Natsuki's downtrodden state, "Now then, if you will excuse me I need to catch up on my rest and you will need too as well. If you will follow me I will take you to your quarters."

Natsuki just nodded going over all the events that had passed within just a short amount of time and followed the other woman out but not before grabbing her kris. The walk to Natsuki's new living area took no time at all, in fact the would be room was just down the corridor from Haruka's office room. Haruka took her leave quite quickly but not before giving Natsuki a 'good luck' and Natsuki just watched as the commander walked four doors down and disappeared into a similar room.

Natsuki opened the door to her new living arrangements and proceeded inside immediately shutting the door behind her. Once inside Natsuki made a bee-line to the large bed that sat inside an equally large room. However Natsuki was dead tired and didn't notice the rich accommodations. She dropped her blades haphazardly to the ground and fell into the mattress falling asleep almost instantly.

* * *

Tate Yuichi walked through the dense foliage of the Artaian jungle, grumbling the entire way. The humidity was death and he silently prayed to every god he knew that he wasn't in his standard plate armor. Though his hair was still matted down straight from sweat as well as was his clothing.

"Oi! Reito! Are you sure this is the right way?" The duo had been walking off path for what seemed to Tate like an hour now and he was quite certain that they were completely lost.

"Tate! Over here!" Replied a voice from somewhere in front of Tate and he resigned to follow the voice, cutting at the foliage impeding his way with his longsword.

It only took a few strides before Tate emerged from the tree line and out into an enormous circular expanse, a large crater was cut into the center. His companion was standing at the drop off looking back at Tate with a very elated expression on his face.

"What's got you so happy?" Tate asked while walking up to Reito.

"Just take a look." Retio responded arcing his spear over the crater.

Tate looked over the edge and could make out the vague form of a large complex of stone structures that looked to have seen better days, though in the dawn light it was hard to make out everything. "So you think this is it?"

"Heh, It better be." Came the response with a chuckle, "Let's get down there and find out eh?" Retio continued and started to walk down the steep incline.

Tate followed, "I can't believe we're missing the knight's exam for this crap."

"Ah, don't say that Tate, we're doing important work here. I'm sure you can miss one year of seeing the squires getting beaten." Reito said with another chuckle.

"Why isn't Airies doing this instead? Wasn't it there archaeologists that got lost, why are we stuck doing their dirty work?" Tate grumbled, almost tripping on a stone.

"Because they are our allies and as allies we must be willing to help one another and since there closest contingent of troops are most likely halfway across the world we we're the logical choice."

Tate let out a sigh and pushed some of his hair out of the way, "Yeah I guess your right."

"If we get through quickly I'm quite certain that we can catch a good part of the battles, they don't start until midday anyway." Reito said to give some encouragement to his partner. Though he was uncertain if the desired effect was achieved

The rest of the trek down the crater's side was spent in silence. The duo reached the bottom to be greeted with absolute stillness and silence. Not even the sounds of the forest sounded over them, the two knights looked to each other for a moment before Reito started walking.

"I can't see anything down here." Tate said after several minutes of walking through one of the buildings, "Hey Reito, give us some light would ya?"

"I was just thinking the same thing, one second." Reito replied before resting the butt of his spear on the ground and muttered, "_L__ŭmąs."_An instant later and the blade of his spear erupted in a white light instantly illuminating the surrounding area in the white glow.

"Now that's better." Tate said looking over their current surroundings now able to actually see what was around him.

"Hmm, what's this?" Tate heard Reito mutter and looked too see what his partner had found.

"What is it? Anything good?" Tate quizzed Reito.

"No I'm afraid not." Came a morbid response, "Look." Reito finished turning towards Tate. Tate could see a silver longsword in his hand, it was still gleaming from a recent polishing, "There's no doubt this came from the one of the guards."

Tate ran a hand through his hair, "I guess that means-"

Tate didn't get to finish his statement because Reito raised his hand in a silencing motion and quickly brought his spear into a ready stance. Tate followed suit quickly then looked around wildly for danger but couldn't find any. Just when he was about to quiz Reito on what was going on her heard what he could only describe as a crackling coming from what seemed like everywhere. Neither Reito nor Tate however could see the creatures making the noise, whatever they were they were sure to stay outside the circle of light.

"_Fekr__â."_Reito muttered his hand outstretched towards the darkness, a fireball erupted from his palm piercing the darkness where it contacted with it's intended target. There was no sound uttered from the mysterious creature however several bones flew into the circle of light, along with a longsword like the one they had found just moments earlier. A skeletal hand gripped the hilt tightly.

"Oh just great, undead." Tate muttered, "Oi, Reito let's get out of here, like now." Tate was worried, he was no mage and conventional weapons, especially bladed ones, against undead was not the most effective way at handling the walking corpses.

"You read my mind Tate, let's go on my mark." Reito said moving to stand in front of Tate looking towards the exit, "Ready...set...go!" Reito yelled, "_Ferïs"_with an arc of his lance a wave of fire cleared the way, the two knight's followed closely behind.

"For lady Necra!" Tate heard a crackling cry followed by the sound of metal against stone.

The two exited the building to find that the sun had risen to Tate's relief. Though he didn't have time to relish the feeling as the two quickly cleared the distance from the stone building to the steep climb that was the edge of the crater. From behind Tate could hear an ear piercing scream and chanced too look back to find the skeletal warriors had stopped in the safety of the building.

"Phew, Reito, I think we're ok for now." Tate said exhausted, wiping sweat from his brow with his arm.

Reito paused and let out a deep breath, "I think that we've done enough searching, don't you?" He asked trying to lighten the mood.

Tate let out a fake chuckle, "I think so too. Let's get out of here. We need to let his highness know about this, undead practically on our back door is not good news."

"Agreed." Reito nodded pulling out a small circular gemstone from a pouch on his waist, "Next stop Fuuka Castle." He finished by throwing the gem to the ground causing it to shatter and enveloping the two in a blue light. As quickly as the light had appeared it was gone, along with the two knights.


	3. Chapter 4

Chapter 4- Defy Expectations

"Miss...Miss..." Natsuki was abruptly woken by a slight shake. Her first thoughts were she was under attack and her hand went to one of her kris but when she didn't find the familiar hilt at her waist she remembered the events of the past night and groaned.

"Miss, You have to get up. The exam starts in an hour, you mustn't be late." Natsuki cracked an eye to see a young servant girl standing over her bed.

"Exam??" Natsuki asked groggily.

"Yes, Your participating in it, aren't?" The servant responded.

"Participating???" It took Natsuki's tired brain a moment to connect the two words but when it came she was rudely awaken and shot up and out of bed almost immediately scaring the servant to death, "You don't mean that damned knight's exam thing, That's today?" She questioned the frightened girl who merely nodded. Natsuki muttered a silent curse and smacked her forehead, however her thoughts on how to murder everyone who got her stuck in this mess and then get the stupid choker off her neck were short lived seeing as a chain smacked her in the face.

"Son of a..." Natsuki muttered more out of surprise than pain as she moved her hand from her face to look at the manacles that still rested on her wrists, she had totally forgotten about them. Natsuki let out a sigh then looked at the servant girl, "Out..." she said simply pointing towards the door.

"But..." The girl started to protest but was quickly silenced when Natsuki gave her a very cold stare, "Y-Yes, Miss..." The girl said a little scared and walked out of the room. Natsuki watched in amusement when the servant walked in a large circle to avoid getting anywhere close to her two kris lying on the floor.

When the door was shut Natsuki let out another sigh then looked at the iron cuffs. After making a quick check that no one was hiding out anywhere close by she wrapped one hand over one of the iron cuffs and muttered a quick, "_Peil._" As soon as the word was out of her mouth a spiderweb of cracks spread it's way over the bond and then it shattered into pieces. She repeated the process on the other manacle and flexed her now free wrists.

"Now...if only I payed attention to disenchanting classes." Natsuki said with an exasperated sigh tracing the silver choker with a finger. Then a thought crossed Natsuki's head, she moved her hand towards the clasp on the choker and moved to take it off and immediately wished she hadn't. A sharp stabbing sensation pierced her hand and forced her to remove it. Natsuki took a sharp intake of breath and flexed her now numbed hand, _Well it was worth a try, at least I'm awake _now. She thought dejectedly.

"Umm...Miss, I was instructed to take you to the arena. If we don't hurry we will be late." Natsuki heard the servant yell through the door.

"One second!" Natsuki yelled back then turned to look at the broken chains that lay on the floor and proceeded to pick them up. Once getting as many of the fragments as she could, Natsuki took a look around the room for a place to hide the contents but could not find a substantial spot. Shrugging Natsuki walked to the window of her new room and tossed them out without a second thought.

"Aiieee!" Natsuki cringed at the scream that emanated from outside the window, "Ow! Hey what the hell is this?!" Not chancing to look outside and see what had happened Natsuki quickly made her way to the door picking up her kris and fastening them to her belt in the process. Outside the door the servant girl was waiting, a curious look on her face.

"Miss, Did you hear something just now?" She asked turning her head from side to side looking down the hallway.

"Hear something? No, I didn't hear anything." Natsuki replied with a nervous chuckle.

"Oh...I see..." The girl seemed content with the answer and merely nodded and Natsuki gave a sigh of relief, "Well then Miss, this way, we have to hurry." The girl said and started down the hall with Natsuki in tow.

The duo's walk through the city was spent in relative silence, which was fine with Natsuki. The two had left the Noble District and were making there way through the throngs of people that filled the Common District streets. Natsuki was amazed that there were so many, during the couple weeks she had been in the city she had never noticed that it was so crowded. The pair had to push there way through the masses to make any headway at all and Natsuki had to wonder if they were going to make it at all.

"There it is!" Natsuki heard her guide pipe up and point over the crowd. Sure enough Natsuki could see the giant and richly decorated emerald dome that marked the arena tower over the surrounding buildings.

_Finally_. Natsuki thought as she saw the structure, though the two still had a ways to go before they could actually enter the building and the plaza in front of the stadium was packed with even more people. Seeing the sea of heads Natsuki let out a groan but continued to push her way through along with her guide.

* * *

Nao stood lazily against one of the many pillars that sat along the top of the arena, watching with a bored expression as the seats filled with people. Glancing to her side she smirked as she watched an annoyed Haruka yell at an arena attendant, though the actual conversation was inaudible amid the noise of the increasing crowd. She continued to watch as the attendant walked away lazily and Haruka still yelling at his retreating form before the commander turned and made her way towards Nao's location. 

"So...Haruka, what crawled up your butt today?" Nao said still smirking.

"Must you be so vulgar all the time?!" Haruka snapped, "and how many times do I have to tell you it's commander!"

Nao gave a shrug that went unnoticed, "Whatever, I was only trying to be nice and see what the problem is."

"And you couldn't have asked like a normal person?!" Haruka yelled turning towards Nao who replied with another shrug infuriating the blond even more, "You know what Nao? It's amazing I let you keep your position with the way you act. I am this close to demoting you." Haruka made a small space between her thumb and index finger for emphasis, "This close, got it? So I'd shut your mouth if I were you."

Nao dismissed the outburst with a wave of her hand, "You say that everyday. It's kinda lost it's touch, ya know?"

"Gahhh!" Haruka yelled turning away from Nao and towards the center of the arena, her hands gripping the metal railing tightly. Nao couldn't help but laugh.

"At it again I see?" The muffled woman's voice brought Nao out of her laughing fit and caused her to look over to find a knight in a set of full ceremonial armor of a deep crimson red, helmet and all. A gold, ruby encrusted rapier made it's home on the knight's waist. Nao couldn't help but start laughing again, "What's so funny?" The knight asked putting her hand's on her hips.

"I can't believe you actually came in your armor, Mai." Nao barely managed to get out between the laughs.

The knight removed the full-metal helm revealing a scowl along with a mess of sweaty red hair that clung to the owners head tightly. The young knight pushed her hair out from in front of her eyes and glared at Nao, "You mean we didn't have too?!"

"How many times have we been to this?" Nao asked her laughing fit calming down to a small chuckle, "And how many times have you never seen us in our armor, you'd think you would get the idea, right Haruka?"

"Commander!!" The blond yelled turning around to face the two women, however this time instead of a frustrated look, Haruka had a grin on her face, "Though I hate to admit it, Yuuki has a point Mai. Not even I wear my armor, and if I remember correctly this is the fourth year in a row that you've done this." Nao's laughter had increased to it's regular velocity and Haruka joined in.

"Hmph, it's not that funny!" Mai protested setting her helmet down on the floor.

"Sorry, Sorry." Haruka managed after taking a moment to calm herself, "But it is just a little." she added looking at Mai, "Oh, hey, what happened to your forehead?"

"hmm?" Mai asked before bringing her hand to her forehead and touching a small bruise that had formed in between her eyes, "Oh...this? I don't really know. But I was walking through the castle courtyard and then BAM! I got smacked in the head by a bunch of metal fragments. Luckily I had my helmet on and only a small one made it through the visor."

"Oh?" Haruka asked worriedly, "I wonder what idiot would do something like that. I'll get to the bottom of this when we get through here." She finished with a tone of determination.

"Ah, That's ok Haruka, It's fine really, it's not that bad." Mai said sincerely, and somewhat hastily.

"Are you sure, Mai?" Haruka asked which was responded with a nod, "Hmm...If you insist." She finished turning back to watching the arena fill with people.

Mai let out a grateful sigh before taking a place next to Haruka, "So...Think any will actually win today?"

"I doubt it." Haruka answered simply, "They never do."

"What about you Nao?" Mai asked turning to look at the red head.

"Huh?" Nao asked looking up with a blank expression on her face.

"Do you think any of the squires will actually win tonight?" Mai repeated the question.

"Hmm..." Nao muttered bring a hand to rest against her chin in a thinking motion, "Your little beast is participating this year isn't she?"

"Mikoto is not some kind of animal!" Mai yelled in protest, "But..." she continued in a calmer manner, "Yes, Yes she is."

"Oh...I'm sorry, it's just that those ears and that tail, along with the way she's always following you around like a little pet throws me off sometimes." Nao said with a smirk ignoring the look she was getting from her fellow knight, clearing her throat she continued, "But...if anyone has a chance I'd put my money on her...Ohh, and maybe the prisoner chick."

"Prisoner chick?" Mai asked, "You mean that one with those weird weapons? Why is she participating?"

"It was a request." Haruka said with a clear tone of annoyance, "And...Yuuki, you do know who she's fighting right? She has no chance."

"Yeah yeah yeah, I know but...meh." Nao responded with a shrug, "Something tells me that that girl is more than she looks, and I'm good with these kinds of things."

"If you say so...I just hope she doesn't get beat too badly. That way I won't have to deal with questions of why she was accepted."

"What the hell are you guys talking about?" Mai asked staring back and forth between the two others.

"Don't worry about it, Mai, it would take too long to explain." Haruka answered the knight, who in turn left it at that, leaving the three to watch and wait for the festivities to begin.

* * *

Natsuki sighed and leaned back against a stone wall of the squire's entrance area and slid to the ground. The walk through the packed streets had left her tired and even worse annoyed. Natsuki took a few deep breaths to calm herself before looking around the large gathering of people. 

_There must be more than three hundred people in here_. Natsuki thought as she looked over the mass of people in there armor and weapons. Natsuki noticed that she was the only one without a suit of armor and felt a little out of place, though not for only that reason. She also noticed that she was receiving a lot of stares, mostly from the males, Natsuki closed her eyes attempting to calm herself before she got in a fight.

"I've never seen you around here before? What's your name?" Natsuki opened her eyes to be greeted with a pair of bright yellow eyes only inches from her face. Natsuki made an involuntary shriek and stood up incredibly fast causing the other person to jump backwards and earning the attention and snickers from the nearby squire's. Blushing at the involuntary attention Natsuki glared down ready to vent her frustration to find a young girl staring up at her curiously a pair of cat-ears twitched excitedly atop her head.

"Hey, are you ok? Your face is really red, maybe you should go see a cleric." The black-braided haired girl said poking at Natsuki's cheeks.

Natsuki smacked the girl's hand away quickly scowling, "Who the hell are you, and what do you want?"

"Hey, I asked first." The girl pouted, eying Natsuki's blade heaths, "Hey, are those yours. Can I see them?" The girl said reaching for them before being stopped by Natsuki.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you." Natsuki whispered not wanting to attract any further attention.

"Aww, why not?"

"Because bad things will happen if you do."

"Bad things?" The girl wondered aloud, "Oohh! Are you that prisoner that Mai was talking about! What are you doing here?" She continued a little too loudly, gaining the interest of several nearby squire's, "Hey? Are you listening? Why-mmm" Natsuki quickly covered the girl's mouth.

"Will you shut up?" Natsuki whispered looking around sending dangerous looks to anyone looking at the duo who quickly looked away finding an interest in anything else at the moment, "If I show you them will you leave me alone?"

"Mm-hmm" The girl mumbled nodding pleased. Natsuki let out a sigh removing her hands from the young girls mouth before pulling out one of her blades. The girl looked at the weapon in wonder then up to the owner.

"Where are the edges?" She asked.

"They don't have any." Natsuki responded annoyed, "They are made for stabbing not slashing."

"That's odd." The girl responded simply, "They must be hard to use huh?"

Natsuki shrugged sheathing the weapon, "Now that I showed you it's time to uphold your part of the deal."

"But-"

"Mikoto Minagi! Your Up!" The girl looked towards the arena entrance then back to Natsuki a little sadly.

"Well...that's me I guess." The girl named Mikoto said to Natsuki, "Good luck in your fight." She finished before running towards the arena entrance. Natsuki noticed the large ebony zweihander strapped the the small frame and wondered how the hell the skinny girl could even hold a weapon that big, let alone use it in battle.

Natsuki shrugged, _Must be the Mithra gene._ She concluded retaking her previous sitting position to await her turn for her fight.

--

Natsuki sighed in boredom, she figured that she must have been sitting in the same spot for more than a couple hours. The only thing helping pass the time for the would be knight was seeing the faces and sorry states of the squires who came back through the arena entrance. But even that had gotten bored after the fiftieth time seeing the same depressed face. In fact Natsuki was pretty sure that out of the hundreds of squires that had gone in, the only one that had been happy was the mithra she had met earlier.

_Though happy might be an understatement._ Natsuki thought looking over to the several sliced up stone columns that the girl had diced in her elated frenzy before disappearing from the area.

Just when Natsuki thought she couldn't take any more waiting a tap on her shoulder caused her to look up too find a man dressed in an attendants uniform standing over her, "You the one called..." The attendant took a moment to check a sheet of paper he held in his hand, "Kuga?"

"Yeah, that's me." Natsuki replied standing.

"Your up next, get ready." The attendant said, Natsuki noticed the man's eyes lingering a little longer than was necessary.

"Is there something else you need, sir?" The comment laced with venom as Natsuki moved her hand to one of her kris' hilts.

"N-No, No, nothings wrong. Just...get ready. That's all." The man said flustered, immediately turning away and walking rather hastily for a group of squires.

Natsuki grinned slightly as she gave a few stretches to alleviate the numb feeling in her legs from the hours of sitting on the cold stone floor before she made her way to the entrance to the arena.

Once there she was greeted by an older woman who gave her a curious look.

"Your the next one up?" The woman asked a little disbelieving.

"Yeah, is that a problem?"

"No armor?" The woman sounded skeptical.

"No, do I need it?" Natsuki let her annoyance show in her look.

"Um...No...no...right this way." The woman replied somewhat timidly, "It's your funeral." Natsuki heard the woman mutter but decided to let it go. She followed the woman's direction and walked through a simple stone door into a large alcove. "Good Luck." The woman said giving a strained smile and the door slid shut leaving Natsuki alone in the room.

"What the hell is this..." Natsuki muttered, the room was incredibly dark and she had to squint to even make out where the four walls were. Just as she was about to turn around and ask if this was a joke the floor gave a slight lurch and Natsuki stumbled a bit surprised at the motion. Natsuki could feel the floor moving upwards and calmed down slightly.

The ascent was a slow one and Natsuki found herself getting impatient again though the feeling was short lived as the muffled sounds of cheering made it's way into the stone shaft._ Crowd_? Natsuki wondered though didn't have long to ponder the thought as the top of the shaft slid open flooding the darkened area in a blinding light and deafening roar. Natsuki grunted and shut her eyes quickly away from the offending light and could only wonder what was making the noise.

After a few moments had passed Natsuki dared to look and couldn't hold in her surprise._ What kind of test is this_? Natsuki wondered as she stared wide eyed at the sea of people around her. Feeling the lift underneath her feet give a small lurch Natsuki took a few steps off and onto the grassy field that was the arena floor. Behind her the lift descended back down to the squire's entrance and the stone trap door slid back into place leaving Natsuki stranded in the giant field. Natsuki's attention was quickly drawn away from the cheering people and towards the far end of the field where she noticed a similar trap door had slid open.

Natsuki watched as her would be opponent slowly rose into the stadium. However the action was rudely and crudely cut short as the lights in the stadium were abruptly shut off leaving the entire area in pitch black. The crowd also fell silent almost as abruptly.

"What the hell..." Natsuki muttered attempting to get her bearings in the new darkness. Just then several beams of light illuminated the area in front of her illuminating what she guessed was her opponent. At the emergence of the mystery figure the crowd stepped up their cheering a few notches, a feat Natsuki didn't think was possible a few moments ago.

Natsuki gave her opponent a once over, somewhat surprised it was a woman, though she didn't know why. Natsuki couldn't tell who the woman was thanks to the gleaming light purple armet the knight wore. The second thing Natsuki noticed was that the women wasn't wearing any armor, just a robe of the same amethyst color as her helm, and looked like it belonged on some noble rather than a knight getting ready to fight. The third thing Natsuki noticed and mentally cursed at was the long pole arm type weapon the knight was holding, the long slender metal blade glittered in the white light.

_Already at a disadvantage. _Natsuki thought before shrugging the feeling off, _Oh well, that just makes it all the more interesting._ She finished the thought, excitement taking the place of the slight worry.

After a brief moment of obvious fan-pleasing the rays of light disappeared and the main arena lights slowly came to life. After the lights fully regained intensity the knight started to make her way towards Natsuki and the center of the arena who followed suit. The two opponents met and the knight was the first to speak.

"I am pleased to see that you accepted my proposal." The woman's voice came through her helmet crystal clear, a feat Natsuki didn't think was possible.

"Wait...your the reason I'm stuck here?!" Natsuki yelled, finding new found determination to beat this knight into the ground.

"Ara, I would assume that Natsuki would find being free much more appealing than being in a prison." The knight responded simply

"What do you mean free?!" Natsuki retorted pointing to the choker around her neck, "And where the hell did you learn my name."

"Hmm..." The knight said bringing her free hand to the base of her helm in a thinking motion, "It's a secret." Something about her tone bothered Natsuki

Natsuki was about to yell at the knight again but the crowd had started to chant, "Fight! Fight! Fight!" which drowned out her chance for a retort. Deciding to let her weapons do the talking Natsuki drew her dual blades and dropped into a ready stance. The knight did as well and the crowd burst into cheering.

Natsuki took initiative, not wanting to be trapped in a defensive battle, which she would most likely result in a loss because of large reach difference. She closed the gap between her and the knight quickly not even giving the knight a chance to fend the rush off. Natsuki executed a flurry of attacks under the impression that with such a large weapon the knight wouldn't be able to do anything to block the quick attacks that her small weapons enabled her to launch. However Natsuki was amazed when all her crystalline blades connected with, was the wooden pole of the knight's weapon. After a final attack aimed at the knight's head was blocked the two locked blades, each pushing to gain dominance.

The knight chuckled, "It seems I was not wrong about Natsuki."

Natsuki just answered with a grunt and quickly gave a hard push upwards breaking out of the lock and knocking the knight off balance. Following the momentum Natsuki lashed out with her knee sending it straight into the knight's gut. However rather than connecting with the soft stomach her knee impacted with a sheet of metal sending a jolt of pain through her leg. Natsuki staggered back away from the knight surprised, and cursed as she flexed her slightly numb leg. The crowed roared out in laughter.

"A brigantine huh." Natsuki muttered before calling out to the knight, "I didn't know knights liked to play bandit."

The knight shrugged before getting back into a ready stance, "I think Natsuki is just trying to save face." Natsuki could just sense the smile the knight wore underneath her helm and she had to calm herself before she gave into her anger.

Her attempt to anger the knight and subsequently clouding her judgment failing Natsuki charged the knight again. This time however the knight was ready for the rush and swiped her pole arm sideways attempting to force Natsuki back. However Natsuki quickly ducked under the attack and sprang upwards both blades outstretched and aiming for the knight's neck. Unready for the sudden lunge the knight back stepped sloppily, escaping the deadly attack but not before one of Natsuki's kris raked the knight's helmet and sheering right through the metal leaving a large gash from the base of the chin to the visor.

Natsuki was vulnerable now, thinking that the knight wouldn't be fast enough to dodge she had put all her effort into that attack to end the fight quickly and as a result she was still in mid-air. The knight didn't waste any time, regaining her footing quickly she thrust her weapon at Natsuki. Seeing the attack Natsuki blocked the blade from piercing her but without having any form of brace she was pushed back through the air and landed on her back hard.

Natsuki scrambled to regain her footing despite the protesting of her bruised back and not a moment to soon. Just as she got to her feet she saw the blade coming for her again and managed to sidestep the blow but not before she felt the razor sharp edge find it's way into her right thigh. Grunting Natsuki lashed out at the wooden pole smacking the weapon away from her and increased the distance between her and the knight. Natsuki brought a hand down to the wound, blood had already started to soak her pants and shirt.

Natsuki didn't have long to admire the incision though as the knight charged letting out a continuous barrage of attacks leaving Natsuki no possible chance to counter and to make matters worse, with every step on her right leg Natsuki could feel a little more blood seep from the wound. Already she felt the effects of blood loss and knew if she wanted any hope of winning she would have to do something and quickly.

However the knight had other plans and after Natsuki had evaded one of her attacks quickly shortened the grip on her pole arm and lashed out with the butt of her weapon catching an off-guard Natsuki in the gut sending the girl to her knees, an event that caused the crowd to go wild. The knight brought the blade of the weapon to rest against Natsuki's neck.

"It seems that I have won." The knight said, Natsuki could see a smile through the gash she had caused earlier, "Though I must say Natsuki is quite the fighter."

Natsuki only had a second to try and formulate a plan to win, she wouldn't accept a loss, not against some prissy knight. Then an idea came to her and she instantly went with it. Dropping the kris in her left hand Natsuki, with lighting quick reflexes grabbed the part of the polearm where the thin blade met wood preventing the knight to move it. Then with her right hand and a pin-point strike thrust upwards cleaved the wood in two just below where her hand had resided. Ignoring the pain in her thigh, Natsuki stood quickly rushing the knight before she had time to react and rested the blade of her own weapon against the knight's throat.

Natsuki grinned, "It seems that I have won." She mocked the knight before letting out a faint laugh. Then the world went dizzy and she felt her feet fail her. The last thing Natsuki saw was the knight rushing to catch her falling form before the world went black.


	4. Chapter 5

Chapter 6- New Acquaintances

Natsuki scratched her head in frustration, she had long left the hustle and bustle that was the main streets and was thankful for that. However considering this was her first time ever walking through the noble district Natsuki was hopelessly lost. She found herself in the middle of a deadened street, the lamps along the roads not even lit, and the sounds of the distant festivities only a slight murmur in her ear.

"At least it's quiet." Natsuki reasoned taking a seat on a nearby bench, setting her weapons down beside her. Attempting to calm her nerves she leaned backwards and gazed at the starry night sky. Twin red and blue moons shone brightly marking the start of a new lunar cycle, sending an odd but beautiful hue to the otherwise drab scenery. Sighing Natsuki closed her eyes and brought her hands to support the back of her head and in the process turned to lay on the metal seat. She let her mind wander, thinking of anything and everything that came to mind. Though the tactic proved useless as her head invariably went towards her dream, the very thing she was trying to avoid.

"Mom..." Natsuki muttered raising one hand towards the sky finding an inane interest in the back of her palm. Taking a deep breath and blinking away non-existent tears Natsuki sat up abruptly, "No use thinking about it." and like the flip of a switch the emotions were gone and Natsuki was walking down the streets again, determined to find her way back to the castle.

--

"Agh, why the hell is this place so big!" Natsuki yelled out into the still night. The moons had already past their zenith's and the only sounds that rang through the darkness were those of crickets singing their gentle songs. While it was getting increasingly late Natsuki was quite certain the festival was still going on since she still had not seen another living soul since she had got away from the crowds.

Coming across an intersection, one of the countless she had already passed, Natsuki paused. Looking right she tried to find some semblance of a castle turret or some other object from the castle amid the large buildings around her. Not to her surprise there was no such thing in sight, only more and more buildings. Sighing she turned to the left not expecting anything special, though cocked an eye when specs of yellow appeared in the otherwise sea of red that was her elvish sight. Intrigued that she had found the first traces of light since the festival Natsuki felt compelled to investigate.

The source of light was a mere two lampposts, Natsuki thought it odd they were the only two lights out of the dozens in the city, but shrugged it and decided to check it out. Blinking several times in rapid concession Natsuki's sight returned to normal and she peered in through a small golden arch that sat tucked in between two large-scale buildings. Seeing nothing through the arch she decided to take a further look and cautiously made her way through a small hallway, coming to a flight of metal steps, a stark contrast from the surrounding stone. Ascending the steps she cursed as her hard-soled shoes echoed loudly against the flooring.

The stairs doubled-back upon themselves several times before they deposited Natsuki in another short hall and almost immediately the sweet smell of flowers assailed Natsuki's senses. _A garden, here? _ Was the first thought that crossed her mind as she stealthily made her way down the hall despite the fact that even the dead could have heard her climbing the staircase. Nearing the mouth of the hall Natsuki could hear the distinct sound of singing. Exiting, she found herself back in the night air and amid a sea of roses in an array of colors. Quelling her initial surprise Natsuki took too the cobbled walkways in search of the mystery voice, hoping that whoever it was could point her in the direction of the castle.

Natsuki walked along through the darkness, there were no lights save for the small crystal's that sat along the walkways letting people know where the stone ended and the flowers began. To make matters worse the singing had stopped almost as soon as Natsuki had gone out of sight of the garden's entrance resulting in her walking aimlessly through the rows of flowers. The garden was much bigger than she had anticipated and it took her a lot longer to complete her objective though that didn't say much considering Natsuki had no idea where she was going. Then a ray of light caught her attention, following the small beam she noticed an impossibly high circular hedge directly to the right of her. Through the darkened leaves she could see more traces of white light. Taking the obvious lead Natsuki stealthily made her way to the tall bushes and peered through the small openings, inside she could see the vague outline of a person tending to the flowers.

Unable to get a clear view through the dense brush Natsuki silently made her way around the hedge looking for a way through. It only took her a moment to find a small iron gate tucked away between the hedge. The gray metal gleamed in the white light, behind the barred gate Natsuki could see more roses, each a vibrant yellow with tips of a blood red. Peeling her eyes away from the magnificent flowers, Natsuki turned her attention towards the woman crouching in front of a flower bed directly opposite the gate with her back towards Natsuki. Natsuki lingered at the gate staring at the woman, or more importantly at the purple robes the woman was wearing, certain that they were the very same the knight she had fought earlier that day had worn. Natsuki's grip on her weapons tightened involuntarily.

"You know, it's considered impolite to spy on people." The woman said without turning around, her distinct voice erasing any shred of doubt from Natsuki's assumption.

Natsuki cocked an eye, wondering how she had been noticed, quite certain that she hadn't made any noise on her approach. Shrugging the thought away Natsuki proceeded into the small alcove, the iron gate smoothly and noiselessly swinging open. Natsuki didn't say a word as she moved to the center of the circular cage, the only sound piercing the still air the 'clink' of the gate latching itself shut.

"It's customary for the visitor to introduce themselves first." The woman said without turning around again after several moments of silence passed between the two.

"Well I thought that since you already seem to know all about me, I thought you'd like to go first." Natsuki replied with a smirk.

The woman whirled around quickly to face Natsuki her face going from slight shock to a smile in almost an instant, "Natsuki? Well this is a pleasant surprise. What brings you here?"

However Natsuki wasn't listening, instead she was staring at the woman in front of her. She couldn't help but gawk at the woman's appearance, shoulder-length chestnut brown hair, burgundy eyes

and a striking body. A beauty that rivaled that of any elf Natsuki had ever seen. Almost instantly all her thoughts about revenge seemed to ebb out of her.

Natsuki felt a hand on her forehead, "Is Natsuki feeling ok? Maybe she should still be resting?"

Coming back to reality Natsuki was greeted by the woman mere inches from her face looking slight down at her with an amused look. Natsuki noticed a brief flash of worry cross the woman's face before the amused look came back again.

Realizing the current closeness Natsuki quickly back-stepped towards the gate smacking the woman's hand away in the process, "H-Hey, don't get so close!" She could feel her cheeks getting warm and cursed herself hoping the woman didn't notice, "And I'm fine." she added hastily a scowl forming on her face.

"Is Natsuki sure? She seems a little red." The woman said re-closing the distance between the two still grinning.

"I said I'm fine, now back off!" The intended order coming out more like a plea causing Natsuki to turn an even deeper shade of red much to the enjoyment of the woman in front of her.

"Hmm..." The woman's face was full of smug amusement as she brought her hand to her chin in a thinking position, "If Natsuki says so." She said after a moment and to Natsuki's relief the woman returned to the flower bed that had occupied her attention moments before.

Silence engulfed the two making Natsuki a bit uncomfortable but it was shortly broken by the woman, "It's Shizuru."

"What?"

"I believe Natsuki asked who I was and I'm answering, It's Shizuru."

"O-Oh...Right." Natsuki muttered, meanwhile wondering what was wrong with her.

"Now that I have answered Natsuki's question." Shizuru started turning back to face Natsuki, "Would Natsuki be so kind as to answer a question of mine?"

Natsuki cocked an eye, "That depends on what the question is."

"Hmm..." Shizuru resumed her thinking position before shrugging, "I guess that is reasonable enough." She said before outstretching her right arm out in front of her towards Natsuki, her grin spreading across her face, "_Fe__Krâ_." A bolt of fire sprang forth from her hand and towards Natsuki.

Instinctively Natsuki brought up her arms in front of her, "_Kirka._" She yelled without thinking, The fire-bolt impacted with the invisible barrier she had summoned, the very air in front of Natsuki shimmered slightly as the bolt was extinguished harmlessly mere inches in front of Natsuki. The deed done Natsuki cursed as her secret was revealed.

"So Natsuki is a mage. I knew it."

"H-How?" Natsuki managed to get out.

"Hmm, Well since the only information I could get it out of Natsuki's mind when I tried to read it, it seemed like the logical choice."

However Natsuki wasn't listening as she reeled through the possibilities available to her. Though the only options she came up with were killing the woman or mind-wiping her and she ruled out both. First because cold-blooded murder was out of the question and second because if the other woman was a mage then she would have defenses against mind-wiping.

"Ara, Natsuki seems upset. She shouldn't be worried though, I won't tell anyone." Shizuru stated.

Natsuki looked at the other woman, the statement sounded to good to be true. Natsuki felt it was obligatory to ask, "For what?"

Shizuru put on a hurt face, "Does Natsuki really think that I am like that?" She pouted, Natsuki thought she had actually hurt the other's feelings.

"H-Hey, I didn't mean it like that." Natsuki stammered trying to rectify the situation.

The hurt look vanished replaced by a grin, "Though I guess that it would be smart to ask for something to keep Natsuki's secret, eh?"

Realizing that she had been tricked Natsuki clenched her weapons, "If you want something, out with it already, or i'm leaving?!" She yelled out angrily turning towards the gate.

"Ah, Wait." Shizuru quickly closed the distance between her and Natsuki and grabbed one of Natsuki's arms preventing her from leaving, "It seems I've made Natsuki mad, I'm sorry."

Natsuki sighed, turning around, breaking free from the other woman's grip, "Alright, so what is it?"

"Right..." Shizuru said, Natsuki noticed she sounded relieved, "Now then...What do I want..." Natsuki let out an impatient cough, "Ara, Natsuki should try and be more patient lest she get wrinkles."

"Will you just say something." Natsuki had to fight to remain calm.

"I've got it." Shizuru exclaimed, a devilish grin spreading across her face unnerving Natsuki, "I will keep Natsuki's secret if she swears her loyalty to me in the ancient language."

Natsuki gawked at the woman in front of her, "No way in the abyss." She said simply, "Do you think I'm some kind of idiot." It was one of the first rules she learned at the academy, 'Any oath made under the ancient language is binding and unbreakable for as long as you live'. She recanted in her head and was outraged that Shizuru had the gall to suggest such an insane request. Natsuki turned to leave but was stopped again by Shizuru, "Let go!" Natsuki yelled struggling to get out of the woman's adamant grip.

"Wait, I was just kidding. Natsuki shouldn't be so serious all the time."

The playful tone wasn't what Natsuki wanted to hear and didn't respond. Instead broke free from Shizuru's grasp and again made her way for the gate but was stopped again, this time by a pair of arms grasping at her mid-section rooting her firmly in place, "H-Hey, W-What the hell are you doing?" Natsuki managed knowing full well the blush that was spreading across her face.

"Is Natsuki mad at me?" Shizuru asked seriously, her face only inches from Natsuki's ear.

"Let me go!" Natsuki yelled trying to control her reddening face as well as struggling to get free, her struggle was unsuccessful however and she wondered how the other woman was stronger than her.

"Not until I get an answer."

"No, I am not mad ok? Now let go!" Natsuki said earnestly, her anger completely diffused.

"Hmm..." Shizuru pondered, though Natsuki somehow knew the other women wasn't actually debating the question, "I don't know, I kind of like being like this." Shizuru said into Natsuki's ears and in the process pulling herself closer to the other girl.

"Will you let go! This isn't right, we're both women you know!"

"Ara, Is Natsuki having lewd thoughts?" Shizuru teased, whispering in Natsuki's ear. Natsuki turned an even deeper shade of red and was about to try and talk her way out of her comment when a familiar voice roared out from in front of them.

"What is going on here?!" Both Shizuru and Natsuki turned there attention to the iron gate to see a very angry Haruka.

Haruka eyed Natsuki, "Y-You! What are you doing here?! And what do you think your doing with this-" Haruka stopped suddenly when she eyed Shizuru, "P-Princess?! What do you think your doing?!"

"Princess?!" Natsuki exclaimed trying to crane her neck around to see Shizuru.

"Hmm...Didn't I mention that?" Shizuru wondered rhetorically still clutching Natsuki.


	5. Chapter 6

The moons had disappeared beyond the horizon, and the sun was barely peeking it's way from it's hiding spot. The sky was a marvelous orange and not a single cloud cast it's shadow on the ground. The city of Fuuka was dreaily quiet, most of the citizens catching up on much needed rest after the previous night's festivities. However not everyone was happily dreaming in their homes. A single window high upon one of Fuuka Castle's towers gave off a yellowish glow, contrasting heavily with the hundreds of darkened ones. 

"And that's my report, Sire." Reito finished, giving a short bow and taking his seat at the large meeting table, though many of the seats were empty.

"Very good, Reito..." King Ferir replied with a frown from his extravagant seat directly opposite the knight. Ferir mused the information he had just received, "Undead, hmm..." He muttered to himself stroking his small graying beard, "This is certainly a bad way to follow up the initiation of the new knights." Ferir let out a sad smile.

"I'm very sorry sir, but I didn't feel it could wait much longer."

"No need to apologize son...Just trying to lighten the mood. However, joking aside... What do you think we should do about this?" Ferir asked turning to his commander who was sitting several chairs to his left.

"Well, isn't it obvious? We need to clear it out. We have a cache of holy weapons don't we? Let's just send a company."

"We can't do that Haruka." Yukino said softly, the brown-haired advisor sat directly to the left of the commander.

"And why not?"

"Because these ruins are not in our country, we can't send troops into Artai, they would think we are attacking them. It could start a war."

"Yes and they would love to have a reason." Ferir added, "I appreciate your straight forwardness Haruka but I think a different approach is necessary."

"Then why don't we just tell Artai, let them handle the mess." Haruka proposed, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms across her chest.

"I doubt that they would believe us." Reito pointed out.

"Well then, do you have a better idea?" Haruka had an accusing tone to her voice.

"I have an idea, though I don't necessarily think it's better."

"Well then, let's hear it Reito." Ferir said standing up and made his way towards the large window, the of the entire city sprawled out beneath him.

"Well, since a large contingent of troops is out of the question we should just send a squad of knights. I'm sure that it would be more than enough, plus, since I have seen the area I could easily cast a teleport spell, we could be there and back before nightfall."

"Hmm...teleport you say?" Ferir mused the thought, "Wait a moment, I thought that you couldn't teleport more than two other people with you without severely tiring yourself out. I don't think three people would be safe against who knows how many undead."

"Yes, well, with help I think we could manage at least six." Reito briefly glanced at a half-asleep Shizuru, " I believe this would be the best course of action considering the circumstances."

"That's insane!" Haruka shouted slamming her hand on the table, "Your highness, we can't afford such a risk."

"We can't afford to not take action." Reito responded pointedly

"I'm not saying we shouldn't take action, but to send both you and Lady Shizuru is just stupid."

"But, you would be fine if just one of us went?"

"Yes, in fact I would, because at least then if something went wrong there would still be a heir left!"

"That's enough, you two. " Ferir intervened, diffusing the increasing tension and with a sigh turned back towards the room, "Haruka I appreciate your concern but Reito is right, we need to do this as soon as possible and being as he and Shizuru are the only two mages in our kingdom with sufficient enough power to teleport they regrettably have to go and while I don't like it...the truth is, we have no choice. Reito I will leave it up to you to get everything ready and planned. But no unnecessary actions, I want everyone back alive, understood?"

"Of course, Sire."

"Very good, then, if you will excuse me I have a meeting with the court that I must get ready for. I will be waiting for your return." Ferir made his way to the exit, giving a curt nod at the door before disappearing down the halls.

"This plan is a fool's errand, I just want you to know that." Haruka stood and left the room without another word, Yukino close on her heels.

"So...were you paying attention?" Reito asked amused leaning back in his chair.

"Of course I was and I would appreciate it if you would at least warn me prior to including me in your plans."

"You could have spoken up."

"I could have...but I was busy contemplating other things."

"Would those other things have anything to do with our lovely commander sending you disapproving looks throughout our little meeting."

Shizuru shrugged, "Possibly."

Reito regarded the comment for a moment before shrugging, "Since I know that I won't be receiving any more information, I'll switch over to discussing the planning."

Shizuru stood from her seat, "I'll leave all that to you." She said with a slight smile, "However there is one person that I am requiring to come."

"Oh? Would this person be the same person that you've had an interest in lately?" Reito cocked an eye.

Shizuru shrugged again, making her way to the door, "Possibly."

Reito frowned, stood and followed his sister, "You know I can't do that, I need real knights, not some commoner you decided to have a little experiment with." Reito was answered by the opening and closing of the door in his face. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, "Well that's three down, three to go I guess."

--

Natsuki groaned as the early morning sunlight filtered through her new room's white satin curtains. She had only laid down to bed a few hours ago, a result of being the victim of a seemingly endless tirade from her blond superior officer who seemed dead set on labeling the halfling a sexual predator despite the obvious fact that she had not been the instigator. Knowing that sleep was not going to come back to her, Natsuki slowly made her way to the windows of her room.

Throwing one pair of the curtains open, Natsuki quickly averted her gaze to avoid going blind. After deeming it safe, she peered outside into the large central courtyard several stories below. It was starkly bare, though, one servant was making his way through the grounds on some unknown mission. Natsuki sighed, she was hoping for some sort of distraction to keep herself from thinking about last night. Unconsciously her hands made their way to her stomach and found herself wondering how long it had been since she had been since she was held by someone else without a blade at her throat.

"Agh! What the hell am I thinking..." Natsuki wished for anything to take her mind off of the chestnut-haired girl.

Then suddenly, as if an answer to Natsuki's prayer, the door to her room was flung open then slammed shut. Twirling around Natsuki watched as an absolutely frightened, and practically naked Mikoto surveyed the room, completely oblivious to Natsuki's presence. Natsuki watched in utter bewilderment as the girl quickly made her way to the room's closet, running on all fours like an animal. Once there the Mithra slid the door open quickly and hopped inside sliding the door closed ever so carefully but before closing the door entirely, Mikoto gave Natsuki a hushing motion.

Not more than a second after the closet was shut, the door to Natsuki's room was again flung open, this time a furious looking redheaded girl, whom Natsuki did not know, stood in the frame, "Mikoto! I know your in here I saw you co-." The girl stopped mid-sentence upon noticing Natsuki and immediately calmed down, "Oh...hello, I didn't know this room was being used now." The girl gave a nervous chuckle, "You wouldn't have happened to see a young girl run in here would you?"

Natsuki merely pointed at the closet door with a highly agitated look on her face, though she could not deny that she was somewhat amused at this random turn of events. Natsuki watched as the redhead stomped her way over to the closet and proceeded to try and open the sliding door. Though by the evident strain on the girl's face and the unmoving door, the catgirl inside had other plans.

"Mikoto! Open this door right now!"

"No!" Mikoto's voice was muffled by the door, "I don't wanna die!"

"Oh for heaven's sake...how many times have we been through this." The redhead muttered, "Your not going to die Mikoto, it's just water!"

At the word water Mikoto let out a horrific wailing noise and started repeating, "Mai wants to kill me."

"I am not going to kill you, It's just a bath!!" The word bath earned another wail from Mikoto and a sigh from Mai, "Ok, Ok, How about I make you something to eat ok? Will you take a bath then?"

Mikoto instantly stopped her moaning and the door opened up a crack, "Really?"

"Yes, I'll make you anything you want, as long as you take the bath first."

There was a brief moment of contemplation from the Mithra, "Before."

"What?"

"Mai's food before..._bath_." The way Mikoto uttered the word bath it sounded like she was going to fall dead on the spot.

"No, after!" Mai replied adamantly.

The closet door slammed shut.

"Alright, alright, before the bath, just get out of there!" Mai pleaded and the closet door was flung open and a positively ecstatic Mikoto leaped out attaching herself to Mai. Sighing the redhead made her way to leave but stopped short of the door and turned towards Natsuki, "I, uh, I'm real sorry about this." She tilted her head towards an oblivious Mikoto, "I'm Mai by the way. Your the girl that fought with Lady Shizuru in the exams yesterday aren't you?"

"Er...yeah, It's Natsuki." Natsuki responded simply turning back towards the window, a bit flustered at the mention of Shizuru's name.

"Natsuki huh, well I look forward to working with you, I'll see you around." Mai said with a smile and left the room shutting the door behind her.

"What the hell was that..." Natsuki muttered turning back to face the empty room. While the events that had just happened confused the girl a great deal, she was glad that at least her melancholy thoughts had been pushed out and replaced with doubts of the capabilities of this kingdom. Whether or not that was a good or bad thing, Natsuki was not sure.

* * *


	6. Chapter 7

A knock at the door brought Natsuki out of her brooding, "What is it now..." She muttered looking towards the wooden entrance, she hesitated a second before answering, "Come in!" 

The door was opened, gently this time, and in came two servants, each held something in their arms. On closer inspection Natsuki saw that both of them were carrying parts of a studded leather armor set, the orange dyed leather shined from a recent polishing. The servants placed the pieces atop a dresser before they proceeded out of the room.

"I am sorry for the disturbance miss." One of the servants, a middle-aged woman, said as she entered after the others had left. In her arms she carried a pair of clothes, atop the clothes was a silver longsword, a diamond shaped spessartite gemstone was fastened to the bottom as the sword's pommel, "But I was ordered to bring you your armor as well as help you put it on due to the fact that you do not have a squire yet."

Natsuki cocked an eye, "Put it on? Please tell me I don't have to wear that stuff when I'm just sitting inside the castle."

"I'm sorry miss, I only know what I have been told. Which is to help you with your armor and then tell you to report to the central courtyard."

"Right..." Natsuki glanced at the leather pieces with a hint of disdain, "Thank you but I can manage myself."

"But..." The maid started but was silenced by Natsuki.

"Don't worry about it." Natsuki said simply and relieved the woman of her package, "It was the courtyard right?"

"Y-Yes." The maid responded with a nod, "Very well then, I will take my leave."

Once the servant was gone Natsuki quickly changed, relieved to be out of the white robe she had found herself dressed in yesterday. Once in her new clothes, a simple pair of green linen breeches

with a matching doublet, Natsuki took a look at armor and debated for a second whether or not to actually she should use it. Deciding that she might as well Natsuki proceeded to put the armor on. the process was long and arduous and Natsuki wished that she had taken the servant's help.

Fifteen minutes later Natsuki fastened the last strap on the leather boots and tried moving around in her new armor and immediately frowned as she found that the suit must be brand new since the leather was quite tight and hard to move fluidly in. Shrugging and decided to make the best of the bad situation Natsuki took a look at the longsword the servant had brought her. Picking up the silver weapon Natsuki unsheathed the it and gave it a few practice swings before she frowned again.

"Is this decorative or used to fight with..." Natsuki thought aloud as she examined the weapon, the edges were indeed sharp, clearly indicating that it was to be used, but the blade was incredibly top heavy because of the absence of an actual pommel. Deeming the blade worthless Natsuki tossed the sword and her old clothes into a corner of the room before picking up her own weapons and sighing when she noticed that the sword belt she was given only had a holder for a single weapon. Making the best of yet another bad situation Natsuki fastened one of her scabbards in the holster resigning to carry the other in her hand and headed for the courtyard.

Having stared at the courtyard for some time Natsuki had a vague idea of where she was going, which she was thankful for. Walking through the halls she barely saw another person save for several servants who were busy scurrying through the halls to unknown destinations. The trip was a short one and upon nearing the meeting place Natsuki could hear voices.

"Didn't I tell you two not to drink so much last night just in case something like this happened?" Natsuki recognized Mai's voice and wondered what the girl was doing down here.

"Ugh...will you stop talking Mai..." Natsuki also recognized this voice as the girl that had captured her.

"Both of you quiet down, my head's ringing..." A third voice, a woman whom Natsuki did not recognize, moaned.

Natsuki entered the enclosed field to find two of the woman sprawled out on a patch of grass with the third standing over them. All three wore full sets of armor, two in sets of pearl white plate and one in the black and gold dragonscale, masking their appearances though Natsuki could vaguely guess who was who. Upon her approach the knight who was standing, whom Natsuki guessed was Mai, noticed her and waved. Natsuki replied with a slight nod and sat down next to a tree some distance from the other three not wanting to converse with them, the strategy lasting all but long enough for the halfling as the sound of metal boots clanging against stone came closer and closer to her.

"So you were called down too huh?" Natsuki looked up to see Mai, her helmet off and tucked under her arm.

Natsuki turned her gaze towards the sky, "I guess so." She responded and against her better judgment continued the conversation, "Do you know what this is about?" She asked not taking her eyes off the sapphire blue expanse above her.

Mai shrugged, her metal armor slid against each other noiselessly, "Who knows. Though...it has to be pretty important."

Natsuki tore her gaze away from the sky and focused on the knight next to her, she noticed a woman in white robes, a cleric, walk towards Nao and the mystery knight who then casted a single spell on each of them before walking away. Natsuki returned her attention to the knight in her immediate vicinity, "Why do you say that?"

"Well, cause if they're gathering three captains together it has to be important."

"And that means?" Natsuki was genuinely confused.

However Natsuki didn't get an answer, instead she watched in bewilderment as Mai rushed over to the two hungover knights struggling to get them to their feet. Cocking an eye Natsuki took a look around to find the source of the girl's hectic behavior. Metal footfalls to her right caught her attention and Natsuki looked to find a man in obsidian armor, a spear strapped to his back, making his way across the field. The knight passed Natsuki with out so much as a glance and made his way towards the three women, all of who were now standing albeit with some difficulty. The four started conversing in hushed voices. Natsuki was to far away to catch any part of their conversation and so turned her attention back to the sky.

"So...Why is Natsuki sitting here when she should be with the others learning about today's outing."

Natsuki's body stiffened and she turned her head slowly to her right to find regrettably familiar burgundy eyes staring down at her, "Outing?" Natsuki asked, masking her surprise at Shizuru's sudden appearance, "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Exactly what it sounds like, now if Natsuki would be so kind as to stand up. I need to make adjustments to your collar."

"What for?" Natsuki asked skeptical of the brunette's intentions.

"Well, I would hate to see you shocked into unconsciousness the moment we step outside the city limits."

"Leaving the city?" Natsuki's found herself becoming interested, "Why?"

"Ara, I'll tell Natsuki if she stands up and let's me fix her collar."

Natsuki sighed, "Whatever you say, your high-." Her snide remark was cut off when a metal covered finger was pressed against her lips effectively silencing the halfling.

"Natsuki may not use honorifics when addressing me, understood?" Shizuru's sudden seriousness shocked Natsuki who merely answered answered with a nod, "Good, now then lift up your chin." Shizuru was back to her playful tone.

Natsuki complied and resigned to watch as Shizuru altered the enchantment on her collar, the spell was finished quickly, a feat that surprised the halfling. Whenever she tried to enchant items it always took her lines of spells to complete a full enchantment, "So what's my chain now?" Natsuki asked coolly, lowering her chin.

"Fifteen yards from me, now come, it seems my brother is getting impatient." Shizuru said simply, sidestepping Natsuki and proceeded to walk to where the other four knights were gathered.

Her questions left unanswered Natsuki sighed in frustration and contemplated leaving right then and there but remembered her new restrictions. Seeing no other options Natsuki followed Shizuru towards the other group.

"Now that we are all ready." Reito began as soon as Natsuki had closed the distance between her and the other knights, "If you four would be so kind as to stand back to back please."

Natsuki shrugged and complied with the request along with the other knights forming a rough square. Natsuki then watched and wondered what was going on as Shizuru and Reito took up positions opposite each other with the four women in the middle.

No sooner than the two royal knights took up their positions they started to chant a long and involved spell. A ring of dull blue light formed itself around the group, the light started to pulsate and a shrill humming sound entered Natsuki's ears. The light quickly gained intensity as the spell continued until it was a steady neon blue. A flash of bright light along with a loud bang dulled Natsuki's senses and she had to fight to keep herself from throwing up as her stomach seemed to leap into her throat and her world went black.

The brief reprieve from feeling did not last long, no sooner than everything had vanished, everything came surging back. However instead of being in the castle courtyard the six knights were now in the Artain Jungle, standing close to the edge of the crater that housed the undead infested ruins.

As soon as Natsuki's feet touched the lush jungle grass she was immediately sent to her knees by an inhuman wailing sound that assaulted her mind. The unearthly howling seemed to come from every direction without any tangible source. Natsuki struggled to reform all the barriers that she usually had placed around her mind.

The barriers did not take the halfling any time at all to reconstruct and she was back on her feet only a couple seconds after the whole ordeal had started. Natsuki hoped that none of the other knights had noticed her little episode, though she was more concerned about the sounds she had just heard, She knew what the moaning sounds were and she knew it was not anything good.

Natsuki made a beeline for the nearest tree. Behind her she could hear Reito giving out orders, his voice was low and raspy, Natsuki figured it was because of the strain the teleportation spell. However she could have cared less about his orders and promptly ignored them as she walked away from the group. She did not hear any sort of acknowledgment that she was not part of the group which she was happy about.

As soon as Natsuki had made it to her objective she placed the palm of her right hand on the tree's trunk. She closed her eyes and focused on the tree in an effort to commune with the tree's spirit. It took Natsuki a few moments before she actually formed a link between her and the spirit, a feat that warranted even greater concern for the halfling. Usually a link would be formed almost instantaneously, with no real amount of focus necessary. To make matters worse for Natsuki, when she did indeed locate the tree's spirit the usually vibrant green hue that a spirit of nature generally took on was dull and sickly looking, it's light flickered like a flame that was struggling to stay alight during a windstorm.

Natsuki tried several times to converse with the afflicted soul but all she received was the moaning sounds that had assaulted her only moments earlier. Finding any further inquiry into the trees condition useless Natsuki closed the link between her and the spirit and let out a deep sigh. She had half a mind to check several of the other trees but quickly dismissed the thought, the intensity of the first set of spirit cries were strong to tell her that the entire forest was in the same state.

"It's all dying..." Natsuki murmured as she stared at the few trees in front of her, all of which looked perfectly fine on the outside.

"Is something the matter?" The question shocked Natsuki out of her thoughts and she twirled around quickly to meet the owner. To Natsuki's dismay Shizuru was standing behind her, the effects of the strain of casting the teleport spell clearly displayed over her features, the knight's eyes had dark bags under them and her skin had taken on a sickly white color.

Natsuki quickly recovered from her surprise hoping that it had went unnoticeable, "No, nothing's wrong..." She paused for a moment before she felt obligated to ask, "Are you o.k?"

"Ara, is Natsuki worried about me? Shizuru teased, a weak grin spreading across her face as she leaned in towards Natsuki slightly.

"Hmph." Natsuki said as she side-stepped around the tired knight. She was to concerned with the sad state of the forest to be caught up in the other girl's joking. Upon getting around the knight Natsuki immediately noticed that the small clearing was devoid of any other bodies, "Where did the others go?" Natsuki asked, turning to face Shizuru.

"Well, If Natsuki had been listening instead of taking an interest in the scenery, She would have heard Reito's orders."

"Could you just give me a straight answer for once?" Natsuki sighed.

"I could..." Shizuru trailed off taking a few steps towards Natsuki.

"Then will you?" Natsuki asked, losing patience with the princess.

Shizuru put a hand to her chin in a thinking motion and stayed silent for a moment before responding with a shrug, "No."

"And why not?"

Shizuru gave another shrug, "It's not as fun." she stated simply and with a straight face.

"Not as fun?" Natsuki repeated slowly.

Shizuru let out another smile and nodded, "Yes, that is what I said. Now come, we've wasted enough time, we should really catch up with the others." She said as she slowly started to make her way towards the edge of the crater.

Natsuki watched her walk by her and became apprehensive. She could tell that Shizuru was in no shape to walk, "Are you really sure you should be walking around?"

Shizuru paused in her stride and turned to face Natsuki, "Yes, why do you ask?"

"Well...you don't look good at all, and I can tell that your forcing yourself to walk. You shouldn't push yourself so much, especially after expending such an enormous amount of energy."

"Ara..." A wide grin spread over her face, "It's so nice to see that Natsuki is so worried about me but I..."

"I am not!" Natsuki yelled out defensibly and averted her gaze of off Shizuru, he cheeks turning a slight shade of red, "I'm worried about myself. If I'm stuck having to stick by your side I don't want you passing out or something, I'm not a babysitter." Natsuki finished her small rant and was greeted by a stark silence. She chanced a look at the princess, a little afraid that she might have gone a little to far with her outburst, however when she looked, she noticed no visible changes in Shizuru's stature.

Shizuru merely sighed, a smile still on her face, "I guess if Natsuki insists, we can spare a few minutes." She said and took a seat where she had been standing.

Natsuki breathed a sigh of relief, though at the same time thought it odd that the princess agreed with her. Even though she knew Shizuru for an hour or so at best, Natsuki could simply tell that the girl was incredibly stubborn and for her to relinquish to the halfling seemed totally out of character. However Natsuki was never one to question providence and so she took up position against the closest tree to her and let her thoughts drift back to the dying forest and what was the source of the problem. Then she remembered that she still had no clue why they were in this forest in the first place.

"Hey, Shizuru...You never did tell me why we were here, would you mind telling me now?" Natsuki asked, not peeling her gaze away from the canopy of leaves above her, "And just give me a straight answer this time, please."

"Well, since Natsuki asked so nicely I guess I could." There was a short pause, "We're here to clear out some undead that seem to have taken up residence in some old ruins beyond that cliff over there."

At the mention of undead Natsuki snapped her head down towards Shizuru, "Undead? Here?!" The news totally shocked Natsuki, undead were a rare occurrence.

"Yes, is there something wrong?"

Natsuki cleared her throat, "No, no, it's just a little surprising." Natsuki stammered as she made her way quickly from her spot and towards the crater's edge. She heard the rustling of armor behind her but paid little heed to it.

When she reached the edge she was rendered speechless by the complex of buildings below her, "H-How..." Natsuki muttered as she scanned over the decrepit buildings with apprehension.

"Natsuki...What's wrong?" Shizuru asked as she took a place at Natsuki's side.

"This is impossible..." Natsuki muttered.

"What's impos-" Shizuru was cut off when Natsuki grabbed her arm suddenly and pulled her along down the cliff.

"We're going down there." Natsuki commanded and made her way quickly down the crater's side with new found purpose and an explanation as to why the forest was dying.

--

Natsuki stood in front of a large dilapidated doorway that marked the entrance of the ruined complex. She gawked, as she stared at the top of the door, where a long line of words was etched in surprisingly legible elvish lettering,_Academy of the Violet Storm. _Natsuki sighed, as she ran a hand through her hair, and gave her scalp a few hard scratches, as she thought of all the possible reasons she was standing amid these very ruins.

"Natsuki, what's wrong?" Shizuru asked.

Natsuki didn't respond right away, instead she continued to stare at the archway, thinking. She wanted, needed rather, to go inside and explore, but as she traced the collar fastened to her neck, and glanced over her shoulder towards Shizuru, she knew that the chance of that was close to none. At least not until the others had rejoined them, something she wished to avoid.

"Natsuki? This isn't very safe, we should wait for the others." Shizuru called out again, Natsuki felt a metal-gloved hand cup her shoulder but didn't acknowledge the grip at all.

Natsuki was silent for a moment more before she grabbed the hand on her shoulder and practically started dragging a startled Shizuru towards the door, and disappeared inside. Compared to outside, light inside the complex was non-existent, only several small rays steamed in from the small cracks and holes from the rooms ceiling. Blinking a few times, Natsuki activated her elvish sight and surveyed the room. The entrance hall was in sorry shape, many of the pillars that lined the sides had crumbled away to nothing, and ivy snaked it's way along with walls in thick clumps, with roots and other plants rising up through the myriad of cracks along the rocky floor.

"Natsuki, what do you think your doing, let's go." Shizuru said sternly. Natsuki felt a tug at her arm, but she stayed rooted to her position.

"I'm sorry Shizuru, but I need to check something out, it's important." Natsuki said simply and started to walk forward, deeper into the ruins. However she stopped shortly after when she didn't hear metal footfalls following behind her.

"Natsuki, don't be a fool, these ruins are crawling with undead. It would be suicide if we just went in by ourselves, especially since I cannot use my magic to my full extent yet. We should wait until the others come back, then you can check whatever it is you need to check. But until then we will wait outside." Shizuru spoke with finality and turned towards the entrance and started walking.

Natsuki, without hesitation, twirled around and yelled out, "_HëkiRess._" Instantly the hall was filled with the sound of moving earth, and in a split second a thick slab of stone sprang upwards, covering the doorway, and cutting off the only way out of the room, "Now, let's get going." Natsuki said, walking back toward a stunned Shizuru and grabbing her hand, dragging her along the broken down hallway. Natsuki felt bad that she had to resort to such an underhanded tactic, but if it meant accomplishing her goals she wouldn't let her feelings stop her.

--

Natsuki lead the way through the ruins, the two had traveled awhile through the darkness in complete silence. The only sound that echoed through the stone corridors, were the metal footfalls of Shizuru's boots. Once or twice Natsuki thought she had heard movement in the rooms and halls around them, however so far, there had been no encounters with anything other than the occasional rodent. Natsuki was beginning to wonder if there really was undead in the place at all.

"Natsuki?" Shizuru spoke up quietly, Natsuki could tell there was a hint of nervousness in her voice, "Can I ask a question?"

"Hmm?" Natsuki responded, not breaking her quick pace. Though she was glad with the break in the silence.

"How are you able to see?"

"W-What?" Natsuki asked surprised, almost stumbling over. In her haste to find her way through the maze of hallways, she had forgotten that while she could see, Shizuru was being dragged through pitch black, "It's a spell." Natsuki thought of quickly.

"A spell?" Shizuru repeated slowly, a hint of skepticism in her voice, "I've never heard of a spell that alters eyesight..."

"I created it myself." Natsuki replied, increasing her pace a bit.

"Hmm...So Natsuki is an even better mage than i thought." Shizuru said, "That reminds me, I've been meaning to ask. What master did you train under?"

Natsuki paused for a moment, before continuing on through the tunnel, "Why does it matter?"

"Well, considering yo-" Shizuru started, but Natsuki quickly silenced her by clamping her hand over the princess' mouth, when she heard noise coming from there front.

"Stay here." Natsuki whispered, positioning the other girl with her back towards the wall, and slinked away around a corner from Shizuru carefully. As she neared the noise, she could tell that the sound was actually talking. Nearing the end of the corridor Natsuki crouched low to the ground, taking extra precaution to not step on or accidentally kick any loose debris that might give her position away. As she neared the end of the corridor, she could see shadows, dancing across a dimly lit ground, she guessed from torch lights. Natsuki stopped right before the corridor opened up into a large gathering hall, and waited, listening intently to anything she could hear, and it didn't take long for her to pick up on a conversation.

"Master Lulin!" A high-pitched and crackly voice echoed throughout the area, "The two creatures we sent out are back from their patrol."

"Good, good. So, what did they find?"Another voice answered, this one deep and menacing.

"Nothing." The first voice answered, "Though the front entrance to the academy has collapsed, it seems."

"Nothing you say?" The man called Lulin asked disbelieving.

"That's correct master." The first voice replied.

"Hmm..." Lulin mused, and Natsuki took her chances and peeked around the corner of her perch to survey the room. Upon seeing it's contents, Natsuki immediately frowned, spread haphazardly around the room were at least three dozen skeletons. All of them were walking aimlessly around the room. What surprised Natsuki however were the two humans talking to each other on the other side of the room, next to Natsuki's goal, a large circular hole that seemed to have been blasted apart by a massive explosion, several hundred feet away from her current position. Each of the men had on robes of a jet black, and from her position she could see, vaguely, what looked like a half closed eye embroidered in glistening golden thread on their backs, a sigil she had never encountered before.

"I want them to go back out. Constant patrols. Scour the entire place, leave no stone unturned. After the incident yesterday morning, I want to be ready for anything. Keep the patrols up until they get that damned beast freed from those bonds, and we can get the hell out of this place." Lulin barked at the other man in front of him.

"Yes, sir." The other man replied with a bow before turning to the skeletons and waving an oaken staff in an arc in front of him, "You heard him, get moving!" He yelled out, and immediately the room burst into a frenzy of action, the once sluggish skeletons skittered every which way, disappearing into the myriad of corridors that flowed into the large room from all sides.

Natsuki hurriedly ducked back into her corridor just as several pairs of skeletons rushed by her and into the other halls adjacent to the very one she was hiding in. Natsuki held her position unmoving, as she listened to the echoing of the skeletal feet as they slowly faded, and the she was thrust into complete silence once again. She let out a long, silent sigh of relief, thankful that none of the undead monsters took a trek down her hallway.

When the sounds subsided, Natsuki took another peek into the room. Only a handful of skeletons remained with the two men. Those that did stay had all taken up a semi-circle position around the large hole in the wall, and stayed there unmoving, like statues, while the two men talked to each other, a conversation Natsuki didn't bother to listen to. Not wanting to chance any of the other skeletons returning, Natsuki stealthily ran back to where she had left Shizuru.

"Shizuru..." Natsuki whispered, as she neared the princess, so not to take her by surprise.

"Natsuki? Is that you? What were you doing?" Shizuru whispered back, Natsuki watched in guilty amusement as Shizuru tried to find her in the darkness.

"Yeah, it's me. Come on, hurry." Natsuki said grabbing Shizuru's hand, and leading the way back to the large room.

"Is that torch light?" Shizuru pondered as they rounded the corner and neared the skeleton room.

Natsuki did not answer Shizuru's question, instead she let go of Shizuru's hand, now that the other girl could actually see on her own now, and drew the Kris she had been holding in her other hand from it's sheath. Behind her she heard Shizuru unsheathe her own sword, taking Natsuki's unspoken cue that there was danger ahead.

When they were about to enter the room, Natsuki paused at the opening and took a second glance around the room. She was dismayed to find that the entire room was bare, and even though few torches line the room, they had been very cleverly placed effectively minimizing the areas of dark patches. The only way to reach hole on the other side of the room would be to make a direct attack on the guards.

"Hey Shizuru?" Natsuki whispered, not taking her eyes off of the two men or their honor guard.

"What is it?"

"Have you recovered enough to use your magic?" Natsuki hoped that the other women had.

Shizuru gave a small shake of her head that went unnoticed by Natsuki, "I'm afraid not Natsuki, maybe low skilled spells, but even then, I'm not so sure."

Natsuki sighed, "Fine then..." Natsuki mumbled, "I guess I'll just have to go overboard then." She continued as she moved as close to the two men and as she could without entering any sort of light.

When she got into position Natsuki raised her drawn Kris over her head and focused on her targets.

Confident she had a clear picture of target she brought her blade down in a chopping motion yelling out her spell, "_IoâKrall-Krâ_!" In less than a second, hundreds of tiny shards of ice, no bigger than a splinter of wood, condensed all around Natsuki, and in the same second went hurtling at breakneck speed towards the group on the other side of the room.

The shards cleared the room easily, and before the two men on the other side of the room could react, the shards ripped through them as well as the skeletons. The men were dead instantly, and fell over shortly after they were hit, small trickles of blood flowed slowly out of the hundreds of pin sized holes that pockmarked their body. The skeletons suffered the same fate, and fell over in small chips, the magic keeping them animated gone, since their mages had died.

"Ice magic...How?" Natsuki heard Shizuru mutter quietly behind her

"Come on quickly." Natsuki said hurriedly, sheathing her weapon, "Before the others come back." Natsuki was not sure if the other skeletons that had left to patrol the ruins, were now also piles of bone like these, and so wanted to be away from the room before any of the others decided to come back.. She was skeptical that these two men had enough power to keep so many of the creatures alive by themselves.

"What others?" Shizuru questioned, as the two neared the large hole.

"Other skeletons." Natsuki replied simply, pausing when the two had reached the two dead mages. Natsuki glanced at the the bodies for a moment before kneeling down next to Lulin. She placed her fingertips atop the man's forehead, and tried her hand and peering into his thoughts, to try and get a shred of information on who these people were and what they had done here. However when she did enter his mind, the only vision she got was a sea of fog, signifying that his mind had been wiped upon death. A common practice in mage circles.

Sighing, Natsuki stood and walked towards the large hole and entered the threshold behind it. The hole opened up into a small room, chunks of what was once the wall were strewn haphazardly around the area, and on the other side of this room was another hole that again looked like it had been blown up. This time the size of a common doorway. Before proceeding through the next doorway however, Natsuki paused turning back to the large hole behind them.

"_LŭKirka_" Natsuki said simply, waving her hand across the large hole, and instantly a thin wall of silvery light filled the gap, "Alright, let's go."

"Holy magic too?" Shizuru asked, and Natsuki once again failed to acknowledging her.

The doorway led into a small spiral staircase, unlike the ruins, here the stone was in marvelous condition, no cracks adorned the walls, and the rock gave off a glossy shine. Lines and Lines Elvish spell words also lined the walls, each letter glowed a silvery white, providing a long welcomed source of light to both the women, _A lot of good these did though..._ Natsuki thought, taking a quick side glance towards Shizuru as she traced several of the familiar characters with her fingers.

"This writing...I've never seen it before." Shizuru said with wonderment as she copied Natsuki, tracing some of the words herself, "What is it?"

Natsuki turned to look at Shizuru, and found that the other women was looking at her with a slight grin, "You make it sound like I know."

"Don't you?" You know, Natsuki...I'm not so dense as to not notice things. Though, I'm sure that even a child could see that your hiding something."

"W-What are you talking about?" Natsuki asked, not as defiantly as she would have liked.

"Well...should I start with your obvious interest in these ruins let alone the straight bee-line that we took here? Or maybe how you can use at least two schools of magic?"

"So what, that doesn't mean anything." Natsuki said quickly, spinning on her heels and started down the staircase.

"Then why is Natsuki getting so flustered hmm?" Shizuru teased, following Natsuki down the stairs.

"I am _not_ getting flustered!" Natsuki returned, "You can think whatever you want, I don't care."

"Hmm...is that so?" Shizuru mused, Natsuki could just picture the other's face and it made her clench her fists in frustration, "I hope that, I will get the truth in the near future."

"Hmph..." Natsuki merely grunted in reply.

The conversation stopped there, only the two women's footsteps echoed through the stone spiral. The silence continued throughout the entire descent. Down and down the two went, with no end to the stairway, as they went deeper and deeper, the air started to get cooler. As they got closer and closer to the bottom Natsuki could feel the evil energy emanating strongly from their destination. The effects of the magics, taking a toll even on the surroundings, the stone had turned from it's earlier pearly white to a foreboding black, and the once brightly lit writings had been warped and glowed a blood red.

"Natsuki, I don't have a very good feeling about this..." Shizuru sounded worried, and Natsuki couldn't blame the other woman, even she was somewhat worried.

"Don't worry, we'll be fine..." Natsuki offered reassurance, as they finally reached the bottom.

At the bottom of the staircase was a short hall, and at the end was Natsuki's goal, small doorway. From their position Natsuki could see that another door had been blasted apart. Upon seeing the state of the door Natsuki's heart filled with dread, and she immediately bolted towards the opening at the sight.

"N-Natsuki, what's wrong?" Shizuru shouted, chasing after her.

"E-Empty..." Natsuki gawked, as she stood in the center of a circular chamber. More elvish lines littered the walls, these also warped by the dark magic coursing through the room. Large chains lay about, all severed in half around a large altar that sat in the middle of the room. Natsuki slid her hand across the cool granite altar, before clenching her hand in a fist and slamming it against the stone.

"Natsuki?" Shizuru called out, "What's wrong? Maybe I can help."

"It's..." Natsuki started, but paused when she saw another doorway that was also blasted open, opposite of where they had come in, "Come on." Natsuki said striding quickly towards the door.

The doorway opened out into an impossibly large cavern. A large lake of water filled the entire cave and sat perfectly still, the water casting a silver glow across the expanse. The holy water, still untainted by the evil that had made it's home in the ruins. In the center of the enormous lake sat a large raised platform of stone, a thin stone bridge connecting the island to the small outcropping of land Natsuki, and Shizuru were standing on.

"W-What is that thing?!" Shizuru exclaimed pointing towards the island.

Natsuki followed Shizuru's direction to see a giant creature sleeping upon the large island. The creature was curled around itself upon the island, leaving very little space around the beast and the edge of the platform. The beast was covered in a white carapace, that looked like it was covered in a suit of armor made of bone. All along it's back and neck where spikes that towered to nearly five feet in length each. At the tip of it's tail was a veritable spiked mace, and it's claws were just as long as the spikes in it's back. Natsuki had to guess that from head to tail the beast must have measured more than sixty feet in length. Thankfully, several long spikes of clear crystals pinned the beast to the ground.

"Nathiax..." Natsuki muttered in disblief, though thankful that the large beast was still stuck inside the cave.

"What?" Shizuru asked turning to Natsuki.

"It's a bone wyrm..." Natsuki answered, not caring if the princess wondered how the halfling would have known that.

"Hey...look, it's more of those mages. What are they doing?"

Natsuki looked closer, and saw that there was indeed near a dozen of the robed magic users spread evenly around the beast. Next to the large creature it was hard to pick out the people, it was no wonder she missed them at first glance. Each person looked to be in heavy concentration, and it looked to her as if they were trying to free the beast from it's bonds. A moment later one of the large bondage crystals, gave a small glint before it seemingly melted away to nothing.

"We have to stop them, before they free him." Natsuki said a little more determined than she felt. Without anyway to sneak upon the mages. Natsuki was not certain if she could finish them all off, while protecting Shizuru at the same time.

"Natsuki, watch out!" Natsuki heard Shizuru yell out, just before she was tackled to the ground. Natsuki grunted as she hit the ground hard, behind her she heard several explosions, followed by the falling of earth.

"What the hell was that for?!" Natsuki questioned, and Shizuru turned her head towards the island to see that the mages had noticed them and were making their way down the bridge towards them. A few outstretched their staffs, and from the end of them erupted balls of black fire, that hurtled towards them, "_Kirka_." Natsuki shouted out and the balls of fire fizzled out harmlessly in front of the two women.

As soon as the magi saw the fireballs fizzle out, the man in front of the group raised his hands to the others. Natsuki could not tell what he said, or if he even spoke at all, seeing as each of the magi had a hood drawn over there heads hiding their faces from view. However, no more magical attacks came at them, and Natsuki and Shizuru scrambled to get up, each drawing their weapons as soon as they were up. Natsuki had to figure that trying to release the bone wyrm from his imprisonment had taxed most, if not all, of the mage's power, much to the relief of Natsuki. However Natsuki did not let her guard down for a moment.

"Who are you? And where is Lulim and Dikem?" The lead mage let out, in a deep and raspy voice.

"Dead, just as you will be if I don't get the information I want." Natsuki spoke straightly, and was answered by a roar of laughter from the men.

"That is a good one child...Tell me, what are two little girls going to do to a group of the most powerful of our order? You would be dead before you could even lift a finger against us." The leader chuckled.

Natsuki returned with a laugh of her own, "I doubt that. I'm sure if you could have used any magic other than those weak little fireballs, I'm sure you would have." Natsuki said tapping the edge of her drawn kris against her shoulder with a sly grin, "I'm sure trying to release Nathiax, is a large task. There is no way destroying one of his bonds wouldn't take all of your magic combined." At the mention of the large wyrm's name, Natsuki could see several of the mages tense slightly.

"You know of the wyrm child?" The leader mused, "Well no matter. What you speak could not be farther from the truth girl. We are much stronger than that. And now, while I am curious as to where you learned the wareabouts of this place, let alone Lord Narthiax's name. However I am afraid I will have to remain curious, since you must die now." The mage lifted his staff towards Natsuki and Shizuru, ready to cast a spell.

"Oh really?" Natsuki laughed, "Well let's just see... _IoâKrall-Krâ!_" Natsuki yelled, intent on finishing these men off like she did those in the ruins above. However, Natsuki was stunned when the ice shards froze in mid air, mere inches from the group of mages. The hundreds of splinters fell to the ground harmlessly, creating a large mass of ice across the ground.

"Ice magic..." The lead mage mused, taking a few steps towards Natsuki and Shizuru, who in turn took a step back, ice crunching beneath his boots before stopping to speak again, "Intriguing...Tell me child, how have you come across this magic?" The lead mage said meanwhile tapping the butt of his staff against the ground several times, melting the ice, before continuing, "Ah I see now..." He paused again and leaned forwards, "those blades, I did not notice them earlier." The man said with a chuckle, "To think...To meet you here. Truly what a coincidence, what a wonderful gift you will make."

"What the hell are you babbling about?" Natsuki spat.

"Don't try to feign ignorance child." The man said, Natsuki could sense the smile he wore underneath, "Though I guess I shouldn't call-."

"_Fe-oka__ĕi!_" Shizuru's voice pierced the cavern, and a moment later the entire group of robed men were engulfed in a pillar of fire that reached the cavern's ceiling.

Natsuki spun to face Shizuru, surprised that the princess had used such an obviously strong spell. She turned just in time to see Shizuru start to fall to the ground. Natsuki hurriedly caught her, and eased her down into a lying position.

"I guess I overdid it a little, huh?" Shizuru said with a chuckle.

"A little?" Natsuki asked a little disbelieving, taking a look at the large pillar of flame, the fire still burning bright, "Are you ok?"

"Yes, I am fine, do no-." Shizuru stopped abruptly, giving a few spasms before seemingly passing out.

"Shizuru?" Natsuki asked a little frantically, "Hey, what happe-." In an instant it felt like Natsuki's entire body was submerged in an ice cold lake. Her breath escaped her, and she found she couldn't breath at all. When she tried to move, she couldn't, even in the slightest. She recognized the spell, and couldn't believe that she was under it's effects. She knew that it was only a matter of time before she was rendered unconscious, and so strained her head in the direction of the column of fire. Sure enough, the robed mages started to exit the pillar, unscathed.

"Hmm..." She could hear the leader laugh, though barely, and it sounded as if she was listening through a funnel, "Still conscious I see, though that's to be expected. Fall into unconsciousness, knowing that you and your friend will be our gifts to the dark lady, I cannot wait to see what she has in store for you both." He finished with a laugh, before ramming the end of his staff into Natsuki's gut, finishing what his spell had started.


	7. Chapter 8

Chapter 11 - Old Rivals

"Ugh..." Natsuki groaned as she slowly came to. She was physically drained, and couldn't move a muscle, a side effect of the spell casted on her. Cracking her eyes open was all she could manage, and doing so Natsuki was greeted by a view of the cavern ceiling, shadows dancing delicately across the craggy expanse. As she became more and more aware a prickling sensation started to stab at her stomach. With every breath she took, it felt as if a thousand needles were piercing her gut. Though the halfling had, had worse, and merely shrugged the large bruise off as a minor inconvenience.

"Ahhh...so finally you wake, and just in time to see the revival as well." Natsuki heard the voice of the lead mage sneer somewhere off to her left. Natsuki tried to speak, however she found she wasn't able to. As if reading her thoughts the mage started to speak again, "Can't speak hmm?" He said with a chuckle, "By now I assume you already know who I am, my dear Natsuki, so I must say... I have amplified the spell a bit since our last encounter. Though I'm sure you already figured that one out as well, considering you succumbed so easily." The hooded head of the mage appeared in Natsuki's vision, and try as she might she was rooted to her position. Completely at the man's mercy.

"You know..." The man said protruding two silver, ruby encrusted daggers from each of his robe's sleeves, "I was quite disappointed when I didn't meet you in Kahruhn." At the mention of the name, Natsuki tensed slightly, "I've touched a nerve it seems..." He laughed before clearing his throat, "As I was saying... I thought maybe you had gone and died on me before I could have my revenge." He continued, kneeling beside Natsuki, "But now..." He let out a small chuckle, bringing the tiny blade in his right hand to hover over Natsuki's face, gently resting the edge between her eyes. Despite her condition, Natsuki remained calm, focusing on breaking the spell over her instead.

"Now, You seemingly drop right into my lap. I must be graced with the favor of the gods." Natsuki felt the blade across her face bite softly into her skin, a small flow of blood trickling down her cheek but she ignored the pain, staying focused. She could feel sensation returning to her extremities and with some concentration started to move her fingers.

"You have no idea how long I've waited for this moment!" The man hissed in seething anger, a stark contrast to his previous calm demeanor, raking the dagger quickly across Natsuki's face, cutting a large gash from her brow to her jaw. Natsuki grimaced, letting out a muffled cry, as blood flowed freely from the wound. The concentration she once had gone, she fell back into a paralyzed state.

The man above her crackled insanely, "You know...Red's a good color for you my dear." He said disappearing out of Natsuki's narrow line of sight, "Though you know..." The man said thoughtfully, "That's not nearly enough to satisfy me." Natsuki felt the flat end of one of his daggers slide across her throat and rest there.

"I know that Necra will want to see you alive and well... But, I'm sure she won't mind if your a little beat up, eh?" The mage let out another laugh, withdrawing the blade from his captive's throat. Natsuki let out a silent sight of relief, though it was short lived as a searing pain wracked her body from her right shoulder.

The man above her laughed as he sank one of his daggers into the soft flesh of Natsuki's shoulder. He slid it in up to the hilt, giving it a small twist when it was fully in, earning a cry from Natsuki. He smiled, "What a great sound." He sneered, "How does it feel my dear. To know that you are at my mercy." The man's hooded head appeared in Natsuki's already diminishing vision. The halfling knew that if she didn't do anything soon, she would bleed out long before she was brought to Necra. Neither were promising events to her.

"Though..." The mage mused, "I'm a fair man." He said laughing at his own joke, meanwhile stroking the non bloody side of Natsuki's face, "And while I do so love seeing that lovely face of yours twisted with pain. It just doesn't feel fulfilling enough." The mage said right before he slammed an open palm down hard into her gut, exactly where she had been hit earlier by the mage's staff. Causing an otherwise minor hit to cause the halfelf an excruciating amount of pain.

On reflex Natsuki sprang up, bringing her arms to cover her stomach, only causing her more pain from the dagger in her shoulder. Despite the new influx of pain, she stilled her tongue, not wanting to give her opponent any more satisfaction over her predicament, then he already had been given.

Not caring why she had been freed from her bondage, Natsuki set to curing her wounds. First she focused on the cut across her face, not bothering with spell words she healed the wound with a quick thought, not caring if it took more power from her than if she had casted the spell with an incantation. The effects were immediate, both the physical and mental effects of the wound were gone in an instant.. The gash on her face taken care of, Natsuki turned her sights to the silver dagger in her shoulder. She grimaced as she gripped the handle, even the slightest vibration sent waves of pain through her; Without hesitation, she slid the blade out quickly, and while the pain was unbearable, the halfling managed to keep quiet as she casted another healing spell on the wound.

After her wounds were taking care of Natsuki stood shakily; Turning to face the robed man in the process. Behind the mage was Nathiax, still in his eternal slumber. However Natsuki was dismayed to see that out of the ten binding crystals that imprisoned the great beast, only two remained, and the other mages were still working tirelessly on breaking the seal. To make matters worse as she stared at the beast, one of the crystals seemingly phased out of existence, leaving only one left keeping the monster at bay. She also noticed that beside her lay the still unconscious form of Shizuru. The princess looked unharmed, which brought some relief to the halfling, for reasons she could not put a finger on.

"Ah, Like our handy work?" The Mage in front of her spoke with glee, and bringing Natsuki out of her thoughts. He turned his back to the halfelf before he continued to talk, "It won't be long until we have freed his greatness, and when we do we will be unstoppable. The land will be plunged into total darkness, and there will be no army that can stop us, especially after you and your kinds actions after the last war." The man turned back to face Natsuki, "Though...that is someways away, I'd much rather be focusing on the here and now, don't you agree my dear?"

Natsuki responded to the mage's question by throwing the silver dagger in her hand with a quick flick of her wrist. The dagger sailed quickly through the air, however just as the blade was going to impale itself in the mage's head, he snatched the weapon out of the air with inhuman reflexes. He gave the blade a few quick twirls before it vanished in a small flash of light, "Tsk, tsk, tsk, It's not nice playing with other people's toys you know." The mage said with another laugh.

"How did you break free?" Natsuki demanded more than questioned.

"Hmmm..." The mage mused, his right hand disappearing under his hood, "That's my little secret" He answered simply, and with a laugh, "Plus, you should be worried more about yourself, instead of others." He said with a shrug, "I'm going to make sure you suffer for the pains you've caused me!" The mage yelled, and without warning, rushed Natsuki with lightening speed. As he closed the distance, identical scimitars of an onyx black appeared in his hands in a flash of black mist. One glowed a fierce green, while the other sparked with a neon purple. As he neared the halfling he arced both blades in a sideswiping motion in front of him. From the two swords two waves of energy shot out in long trails. The waves the respective colors from their respective sword.

Natsuki quickly erected a magic barrier in front of her. The two arcs of energy connected with the barrier and fizzled out. However the barrier didn't stop the entire length of the dual blasts, and the magic impacted with the rock face behind her. Where the green wave of energy hit, the rock was instantaneously melted into magma; Where the purple wave hit, the rock was decimated in a small explosion. Natsuki watched with sheer awe at the tremendous power of her opponents weapons.

However she quickly returned her thoughts to the battle, and just in time too. The mage had fully closed the distance between them, and was bringing his weapons slicing down at her. The halfling executed a quick sidestep, unsheathing the kris she was currently holding with her right hand, and sliced at at the mage. Her opponent however stopped his current attack on a dime, and met Natsuki's weapon with his green scimitar. As they impacted an unearthly cry pierced the room, a by-product of the materials the two fighter's weapons were made of being clashed together.

The mage brought his other weapon down, aiming at Natsuki's head. Natsuki quickly dropped the sheath she was holding in her left hand, and drew her other kris, blocking the purple sword mere inches from her ear. As the two blades met, a few strands of the scimitar's purple glow sprang into the air, and touched Natsuki giving the halfling a significant jolt as electricity surged throughout her body. Surprised, Natsuki broke the weapon lock the two fighter's were in, pushing the mage back as she hopped backwards.

"Hehehe." The mage crackled, "In case you hadn't noticed, I've upgraded a bit since our last excursion. How do you like it? You're the first person I've encountered, since we were freed from out blasted imprisonment that hasn't died in a single attack. I'm grateful for that, you know. All my other fights have been so droll. I thought that once I got back to the surface i'd be able to test my skills freely." He said lowering his guard, resting the green glowing weapon on his shoulder, without any harmful effects, "I know back during the war, there was no end to worthwhile opponents, even a fair share of humans could last a few minutes with me before I finished them off. But now, not one single fighter in Kahruhn could meet my standards. I can't even tell you how many elves I slaughtered without even breaking a sweat." He finished with a laugh.

Natsuki had heard enough, she brought a spell to the forefront of her mind, and with a quick step on the ground, she was hurled forward by a massive amount of wind emanating from her foot. She positioned her blades straight in front of her, intent on finishing her opponent quickly. The mage just stood in his spot, waiting for the halfling to come to him. As soon as she was in range of his attacks, he ducked Natsuki's blow and casted his own spell, he shot a ball of black fire upwards, aiming for the halfling's chest. Natsuki quickly altered her position in mid-air, with a quick wind spell, so she was facing the mage, who crouched directly below her. She formed a barrier at the last second, the heat singing her hair a bit, but not doing any serious damage.

Natsuki continued on her new trajectory, preforming a full cartwheel before landing dangerously close to the edge of the stone island. Just as she landed the mage was upon her again. Natsuki barely managed to block the attack launched by her opponent. The two locked blades again.

"What's wrong Natsuki?" The mage sneered, attempting to send her of the island and into the water below, "Have the centuries had such a profound affect on you? I was hoping that you might pose some sort of challenge, you don't want to disappoint me now do you?"

Natsuki answered the question with a grunt, quickly withdrawing from the lock, and stepping around the mage. Before he had time to react Natsuki delivered a strong front-kick straight into the small of the mage's back, sending him over the side. She smirked when she heard a resounding splash below.

The halfling knew that her little stunt would only give her small window of time, and so she hurried towards the closest magic user, intent on killing him before Nathiax had been freed. She knew that every other member of the mage's order would need total concentration on breaking the wyrm's bonds, and could not do anything else. If one member was felled, the entire process would be broken and the undead creature would stay sleeping. At least for a little while longer.

However before she even got halfway to her target, a swirl of black fire formed in front of her, and a moment later she felt a foot connect with her face, sending the halfling to the ground hard. However before she hit rock, she caught herself with her right hand, and with a roundhouse was back on her feet. In front of her was the mage, not even a shred of his clothing damp from his recent incursion into the water below. However a visible trail of smoke rose from the man, a reaction from being submersed in the holy liquid.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk." The mage reprimanded Natsuki, waving his purple sword back and forth infront of him, "Your fight is with me my dear. Please leave the other's out of this. That is of course if you don't care about your little friend either." He threatened joyfully. Natsuki clenched the hilts of her kris tightly, earning a laugh from the mage, "I see you understand, good...good. Now then, where were we?" The mage said before attacking Natsuki again.

This time Natsuki was ready though, and ran to meet the mage. The two met in a frenzy of slashing, parrying and dodging. Both fighting on even ground. Attack after attack was launched, and countered by the other, in a deadly dance. Each time Natsuki's blades met the mage's fire and electricity filled the sky, accompanied by the insane screeching of the metal's clashing against each other. They were completely on even ground, neither willing to yield an inch as they circled each other.

"Hahaha, this is more like it Natsuki!" The mage yelled exuberantly as he slashed at the halfling's neck only for the blow to be deflected away forcing the mage to quickly sidestep the halfling lest he be skewed by an icy blue blade., "I knew you still had it in you."

Natsuki blocked another attack, this one a stab to her gut before she leaped backwards several feet, and with an uppercut of one of her blades, launched a crescent moon shaped shard of ice towards her opponent. The mage responded with an uppercut of his own, firing a similarly shaped crescent of fire. The two impacted immediately turning into a billow of steam.

The two paused for a moment, both breathing noticeably harder, though neither struggling to get oxygen to their lungs. Just then a noticeable cracking filled the cavern, and Natsuki watched as the last of the binding crystals shattered into millions of tiny fragments, the pieces disappearing into thin air as soon as they broke away from the core shard.

The mage laughed, "It is done my dear!" He continued to laugh, his weapons disappearing from his hands. As he did so, the other mages all congregated around their leader, all obviously pleased at there work.

The crystals gone, Nathiax stirred taking a deep breath. The noise clearly audible, as his huge lungs filled with air. As the beast exhaled , a long spout of black fire shot out from both the beasts great maw, as well as his nostrils, the flames melting the stone floor quickly.

Natsuki watched for a moment in horror before she came to her senses and quickly, yet silently made her way to the still unconscious Shizuru. Sheathing her one weapon, and picking up her discarded casing, sheathing that one as well The gap between her and the princess was closed quickly, and Natsuki scooped her up. She didn't want either of them to be around when the beast actually woke from his slumber. Though she was content with knowing that the mages were in for a rude awakening.

However her hope to escape unnoticed was shattered when a tremendous gust of wind, threatened to knock the halfling and princess off the edge of the island. Natsuki turned to see Nathiax stretching his wings, and starting to stand facing the only exit to the outside. Once up, the great beast let out a roar so loud, it shook large amounts of rock loose from the ceiling. When the sound was over some ten seconds later, Natsuki's ears were ringing, though she could still hear the lead mage talking.

"Lord Nathiax." He addressed the beast with a deep bow, the other mages behind him mimicked the motion, "It is good to see you well."

Nathiax didn't answer, he merely regarded the congregation in front of him blankly. Natsuki looked at the lead mage, she could tell he noticed something was amiss, and she silently laughed at his plight. A second later Nathiax struck out. With a surprisingly quick swipe of one of his massive claws he wiped out the entire group of mages, cutting them all clean in half. However the lead was quick enough to warp away, mere seconds before he would have been gored along with the rest.

"What did you do?!" The mage screamed in anger appearing directly in front Natsuki. Natsuki ducked just in time to dodge an attack from both of the mage's scimitar's, "What have you done?!" He yelled again this time waiting to strike until he received an answer.

"A failsafe." Natsuki responded, relishing in the mage's anger, "We thought something like this might have happened. Or maybe I should say my _brethren_." Natsuki uttered the word brethren with the upmost contempt, "thought something like this would happen. They destroyed his mind, he's just a mindless beast now. I just wanted to kill the thing, but they didn't seem to agree with me." She said with pleasure. Behind the mage, Natsuki watched as Nathiax turned his attention from the bloodied mass of bodies in front of him to them.

The halfling decided that it was time for her to make her exit, before she became just another body like the other mages. Quickly she fell backwards, falling over the side of the island toward the holy water below. Natsuki heard the mage above her scream in anger, immediately following was another loud roar from Nathiax.

As Natsuki fell through the air, she casted a spell towards the pillar of rock that held the island in place. With a quick wave of her hand, a large sheet of razor sharp wind whipped out and sheered through the rock with ease. Seconds later the entire island collapsed, plummeting into the water below. Natsuki then turned towards the ceiling, and with another spell, a large ball of lightening rocketed forth. The resulting explosion destroyed the ceiling causing the cavern to cave in, and sent out enough force to send both the falling island and Natsuki careening into the water. Natsuki was forced to shield herself and Shizuru with a barrier, to keep her back from snapping on impact with the liquid surface.

The water engulfed the two in it's icy grip. Natsuki had to act fast, lest the two catch any sort of cold-related illness. Natsuki tried to calm her mind down, in order to correctly pinpoint the destination in order to cast her teleport spell, so they didn't end up in a tree or under several feet of soil. However the chillness was affecting her greatly, and she couldn't manage to think clearly. Rather than chance freezing to death, Natsuki casted her spell anyway, praying to the gods that it wouldn't get her killed.

--

Wind whipped around Natsuki as she and a still unconscious Shizuru, whom was held protectively in the halfling's arms, fell quickly through the night air. Below them a sea of leaves rose rapidly to meet the duo, and below that expanse of green was an army of razor sharp branches ready to rip the two women to shreds without remorse.

The halfling cursed at her stupidity, she should have known better than to try warping without focus; As a result she was almost entirely drained of her magic, and she was free falling hundreds of yards towards certain doom. The air didn't make her problems any better, her soaked clothes combined with the chill winds assaulting her, caused her to shiver uncontrollably.

But she quickly pushed out all other thoughts from her head, as the ground rushed up to meet the pair. She knew she had only one shot at salvation, given her current condition. When the halfling judged that they were close to thirty yards from impact she released a strong fire spell, incinerating the area immediately below her, though making sure that nothing except the bare minimum was destroyed. Her elven blood, making sure she harmed the forest as little as possible. After the coast was clear, Natsuki casted a wind spell, and a tornado sprang up from the ground. The gale of winds caught Natsuki, and brought them to the ground safely and slowly.

As soon as her feet touched solid earth Natsuki immediately fell to her knees in exhaustion. It took all her energy to even continue carrying Shizuru, whom just minutes before was like carrying a pillow in her arms. Natsuki gently placed the still unconscious girl on the ground, before she rose shakily to her feet.

Once Standing she looked around the area, trying to get even the slightest idea of where she had ended up as a result of her randomly casted teleport. The halfling quickly noticed that the trees surrounding her were the same as the ones she had sensed were tainted earlier. Which also meant that she was still in the boundaries of the Artain Jungle. However here there was no evidence of any kind of magical taint to the environment, meaning that the two women were far from the academy ruins. Which also meant that they were far from any sort of rescue from the other knights that had accompanied them.

Natsuki wondered what had happened to them, and what they might think of the duo's dissapearing act. No doubt they had come back to find them gone more than half a day ago, since it had been before noon when they had arrived, and now it was closing in on midnight. She wondered how long the others would look for them, and what would happen when they didn't find them. Though Natsuki was fairly certain she would be more than able to get them back to Fuuka safely by morning.

However a quick breeze reminded the halfling that now wasn't the time to think about matters out of her hand. She and Shizuru were still soaked to the bone, and needed to find some semblance of a shelter, and quick.

Natsuki slowly sat down, cross-legged and slowly eased her weary mind. She focused on the surrounding forest, and the life that flowed around her. She let her spirit meld with those of the forest, from the ancient trees, to newborn cubs, and even to the grasses. She saw, one by one, through the eyes of each of the spirits of the forest, each image flashing by rapidly, much to fast for a normal person to make any sense of. She continued to shift through the flora and fauna of the forest until she found what she had been looking for; a large cave to provide the two protection for the night. She was ecstatic to find that the crude shelter was barely a five minute walk from where they had landed. Happy with her find, Natsuki slowly let herself out of her trance-like state. Once back to her own body, Natsuki quickly made her way to Shizuru. She knelt next to the brunette and tried her hand at lifting her, but to no avail. Natsuki was still much to drained.

Sighing Natsuki looked at the plate mail arm-guards and greaves that the princes wore. The halfling could tell that they were wonderfully crafted, at least by human standards. Which also meant they were most likely outrageously expensive, which in turn made Natsuki hesitate for a moment. But when another quick gust of wind attacked the halfling. She quickly moved into action.

"_Peil_" She said strongly, using the last bit of her magic to shatter the princess' armor. With the extra weight gone, Natsuki easily lifted her up, activated her elvish sight, and started towards the cave.

--

The trip to the cave taxed Natsuki more than she had wished, but they had nonetheless arrived relatively intact. Though the halfling had managed to gain her fair share of cuts and bruises, from the very dense foliage.

The cave itself was set into a large cliff, that rose more than fifty feet upwards. To the side of the shelter was a rather large river, complete with a waterfall. Though Natsuki would have liked the cascading water to not have been there at all. The noise the falling water made would make it impossible for Natsuki to hear any sort of enemy that might cross their path. Though, the halfling judged that the cave was so far into the jungle that any sort of human contact was slim to none.

However that didn't mean that animal contact was impossible. Immediately after crossing the entrance to the cave, Natsuki was greeted by the piercing gaze of a dozen pairs of yellow eyes. A pack of wolves. Natsuki stood at the cave mouth, completely still. She knew she was in no immediate danger, but she was still surprised fact to walk in. Shortly after the silent exchange the pack, conveying that she meant no harm. Satisfied the wolves quickly lost interest in the new comers, and even went so far as to shuffle over, to accommodate the two women.

Sighing in relief Natsuki set Shizuru on the surprisingly smooth cave floor, and went to work. Without a second thought, Natsuki stripped both her and the princess of their damp clothing, leaving them both bare-skinned. The halfling took a moment to spread out their clothing along the mouth of the cave, hoping that they would dry by the morning.

Her work finished quickly, Natsuki turned back to the inside of the cave. Ready to call an end to

the day. She stumbled her way through the darkness, to tired to even use her elvish sight to get her through. Finding her way back to Shizuru, she positioned herself against one of the cave's walls, and propped up the princess against her front, and while she knew that this was all for survival. Natsuki couldn't help but blush at the bare contact between the two.

As a method of escape, more than anything. Natsuki, with the last remaining bit of magic, conjured a small flame in front of them, to ensure their warmth through the night. The spell cast, Natsuki sank into a deep and comforting sleep almost instanly.

--

The streets of Artai were unusually bare. Though it was not uncommon for the streets to be empty during the winter months. Where the snows fell early, and the cold white would bury the city in it's icy grip; But the first snows were still several weeks away, and at this time of the year the many brace souls who called Artai their home would be stocking up for the long snowy siege.

Yet, there were no merchants peddling their wares, nor the common folk purchasing them. There were no children roaming the streets and alleys playing their games, nor attempting to liberate a fresh meal from the street stands. Not even the deep piercing barks of dogs, or the shrill neighing of horses pierced the still quiet.

However, while the city was in fact a ghost town. A small influx of activity broke the eerie calm. In the city square, a lone figure appeared in a plume of black fire. He landed on one knee, gasping for breath, fury in his heart. But the feeling was quickly quelled, and the man rose to his feet, anger would do him no good, and if he was to break the news of the great Wyrm's condition he would need to be as calm and reposed as he possibly could.

But no sooner than he had risen, the area around him burst into a frenzy of action. From the surrounding houses and shops burst dozens of monstrous beasts. Like a well-rehearsed play, the legion of creatures surrounded the mage, snarling through long, razor-sharp teeth big enough to force their mouths perpetually open. Each of them measured almost double the mage's height, and were covered in a thick spine covered carapace, harder than any steel. Their arms, which measured close to the entire length of their body, ended in a set of five claws made for gutting their victims. They were in fact, bred to kill, and nothing more, their eyes did not betray that fact. They glowed a blood red, and had no iris' to speak off, and while they did not show any trace of possible intelligence. It was made up by the fact of the sheer terror just glancing at the red sockets could instill upon a man.

One of the creatures stepped forward from the ring that surrounded the mage. Many of the spines across his body were broken, and a large scar ran across his face. Scars from the many battles it had to fight to be leader of the pack of bloodthirsty creatures.

The mage sighed, he did not have time to waste on these pathetic beasts. Every time he came back to the capital, he had to deal with them again and again. It was such a hassle, and he wondered how the stupid things could not learn their lesson, and leave him be. It would be so much easier if he could warp to the castle itself, but the city square was the closest he could magically enter the city, due to the large barrier that had been cast around a greater part of the inner city.

The lead creature let out a loud howl, silencing the rest of the beasts, who had been roaring and growling constantly at the mage. The beast lumbered towards his supposed prey. The mage looked at him straight in the eyes, not breaking contact for a moment. The creature let out another loud howl, this time riling up his brothers into a frenzy. As soon as the creature got within swiping distance, he launched a slow, yet extremely powerful overhead slash.

The mage waited for the moment that the deadly claw was about to strike him before he summoned his fiery blade with his left hand, and blocked the massive weapon with the flat side of his own. He then summoned his other sword, and with a quick thrust sank it straight into the beasts stomach, without so much as cracking the surrounding shell. The mage gave it a quick twist, wrenching it out of the creature to the side, leaving a large swath. Black blood oozed out of the wound, as the creature fell hard to the floor, a look of shock splayed over his face.

The mage did not stop there however, he knew that the death of their leader would only infuriate his brethren into a maddened frenzy. So stopping the impending assault upon him, he conjured a wave of blackened fire, that engulfed the ring of creatures closest to him. Each one let out a howl of sheer pain, as the fire burned them from the inside; Their thick carapaces serving as a shield to outside burns, but also serving to trap the intense heat inside of them. Those that were not covered by the flames, were quick to abandoned their dying brothers. Intent on their own survival. Satisfied that his work was complete, the mage killed the raging fire, and proceeded down the empty streets, without another bother.

--

The Artain Castle loomed over the city. The ominous obsidian structure kept the city in line with a vice-like grip. Yet, while it was never a happy place, it was always a bustling place. With maids, servants, cooks, and the like doing their respective duties. But now, like the rest of Artai, it was a building of stark silence.

The mage walked the halls in annoyance. The silence ate at him like a ravenous wolf. He had been entrapped in silence, like the rest of his brothers and sisters for more than a millennium. Imprisoned in the cold darkness of the underdark. Now all he longed for was the sounds of battle, the cries of his victims as he killed them one after another. The look on _her_ face as he ran her through. Yet here he was, traversing a deserted castle, doing menial tasks that were so very far beneath him. Though he was not ungrateful that he was the the Dark Lady's most trusted servant. That he was granted the honor of rousing Lord Nathaix, but at the same time he was quite angered. He was a fighter not some sorcerer, like so many of his kind, who had nothing better to do than break bonds. He should be tracking down the High Elven city, and slaughtering their ilk like he and his kind did with the Wood Elves. For what they had done to them.

Sometimes he wondered if his master really did trust him at times. But he quickly quelled his continued thoughts, it would do him no good to question his master. He was a loyal servant, and he would trust her guidance, no matter how much it did not make sense to him. He would trust that the fighting would come soon, and he would look forward to that day longingly. Ready to savor every minute of it.

The mage stopped his walking, as well as his thinking. He had arrived at his destination, a rather massive pair of obsidian doors stood in front of him. Each inlaid with patterns of fine gold, and jewels. A waste of such exquisite treasures, the mage thought as he stared at the gems. Beside the doors stood a pair of men, eunuchs, standing vigilant. The first souls the mage had seen since coming to the city. Both men were garbed in rather unprotective clothing, and held halberds in their hands. They stood looking straight ahead, not even acknowledging the mage's presence. He knew that they were only there out of decoration, rather than actual guards, and so he paid them no heed.

The mage walked forward. As he did the doors glided open noiselessly as if knowing the mage was present. The doorways opened up into a massive throne room. However, while it was once a room lined with golden statues, and magnificent decor. Now it was only a shadow of it's former glory. The once pearly white walls were now a black so dark, it made one think they were looking into an impenetrable void. The statues of lions, tigers, and other great beasts, which once were proud animals, now were horrendously vicious. Looking like they were ready to attack anyone who's gaze lingered to long. The long, floor to ceiling sized windows were all tinted to the point that the room was cast in twilight.

On the opposite side of the room sat a large throne, once made out of gold and velvet, now was made out of the skeletons of those who had once called the palace their homes. The stairs themselves, the skulls of the departed. On either side of the pearly white throne, sat two women, in the peaks of their youth bare skinned. Both with looks as blank as the two men who stood outside the throne room.

The mage walked down the center of the room, straight towards the throne. Upon reaching the seat, he fell to one knee and bowed his head. All was silent for a moment, but the mage kept his ground, unmoving.

"Amal..." A raspy female voice called out from in front of him, "Your back early. Why?" She asked suspiciously.

"Lady Necra." Amal addressed the voice's owner, "I am afraid that I come bearing bad news."

"I see." Amal could tell that he was already off to a bad start, "Very well, what is it?"

"It seems that the elves took great care in sealing Lord Nathiax." Amal paused for a second, mentally preparing himself to break the news to his master, "It seems that they warped his mind, to the point of madness. He was just a mindless beast when he awoke, and slaughtered the others that I had brought with me. I am sorry, but I have failed you." He finished, prostrating himself before the Lich.

There was silence for a moment before Necra spoke, "Raise yourself Amal, that is unnecessary." In a tone, that was surprisingly anger free.

Amal slowly rose himself from his position, rising to stand at full height. Necra wore a robe akin to the one Amal was dressed in, the same half-lidded eye embroider onto the fabric. Forest green hair adorned her head, cut in an odd fashion, with one side far longer than the other. Purple eyes, cold and calculating, peered down at Amal. Bone show clearly through holes in her still recovering skin, and her lower jaw was all but pearly white.

"I am afraid I am somewhat confused, your unholiness." Amal voiced his concern, "Are you not angry?"

"I was when I first felt his death." Necra continued, stepping down from the raised throne.

"You already knew?" Amal asked.

"You forget about the link that I had with Nathiax, Amal. I felt his state of mind, immediately after you had freed him from his chains. If you had not taken care of him, I would have myself." Necra responded, "It is not like it is the end of the world my dear. I have plenty of humans to make another sacrifice, once you have found my staff, and I have recovered, I can summon another from the abyss. It is not a hard task."

"I see..." Amal said, hiding his relief.

"Speaking of my staff." Necra proceeded to walk to one of the darkened windows, "Have you found any trace of it yet?"

"Regretfully, no." Amal bowed low in apology, the act going unoticed, "Though I have many of the order out looking for it."

"I thought you said that it was in Kahruhn." Necra asked, turning to stare down Amal, "Isn't that why you felt it necessary to attack it. I'm sure by now it has already circulated to the other kingdoms of elves. It was a risky move to make, and I would be sorely disappointed if you did not find it, at the cost of our cover."

Amal bowed again, "I am terribly sorry again. However it was not far-fetched that the wood elves would have taken it. Even you can admit that the staff would be a tremendous treasure to them. I was certain they would have been it's keepers."

"So then you did not find it." Necra's voice was still as calm as ever, yet Amal knew he was treading on thin ground.

"No." Amal said simply, "I am sorry."

"I see..." Necra turned towards the window again, "Is that all then?"

"Yes, That is all."

"Very well, you may leave. But before you do, I want to make it perfectly clear to you, do not come back until you have found my staff. And make sure it is before the winter snows start to fall." Necra's voice had a very sharp edge to it.

Amal gave a deep bow, "Of course your unholiness. I will take up the search myself."

"See that you are successful." Were Necra's departing words before she vanished into nothingness.

Amal gave a slight sigh before he started out of the throne room, the doors opening themselves up to him as soon as he neared. He walked the silent corridors lost in thought. Mainly on how he would track down Necra's staff. He was quite certain that the High Elves nor their sworn-kin the Dragons would not have taken up the duty of protecting it; For fear that it's magics would corrupt them. The sea elves would have made poor guardians indeed. The dwarves of the Northern Shelf, were highly unlikely to be keepers, since they could not cast nor maintain the spell that kept the magics staff from acting like a beacon to him or Necra.

Which only left the realm of the humans. Which was quite an impossibility to Amal's mind. All of the races blamed the humans for the past war. The Elves even went so far as to make sure magic was wiped from most of their kind, though there were exceptions. Back then, even a child could cast even the rudimentary spells, but now it was a rarety for even one who had studied for years to accomplish the same feat. So for any of the human kingdoms to be the staves protector, was as unlikely as the High Elves letting him waltz straight into their city, and meet with the king. However, it was the only trail he could follow, and so he decided to go with it. Despite how crazy it might have seemed to him.

Amal paused at an open window, a strong wind had started up. Judging from the weather, the mage guessed the snows would be falling even earlier than he could have predicted. He judged that he had at most a month before the onset of the winter season would begin. which meant he had much work to do in an increasingly short amount of time.

He put a hand under his hood, pushing the fabric off his head. A head full of golden hair caught in the wind, and the incredibly long locks blew gracefully behind him, and from beneath that hair sat two perfectly elongated ears, each ending in fine points. A long, and rope-like scar cut a swath diagonally across his otherwise perfectly tuned face. But while he was an incredibly handsome individual, his eyes, iris' and all were a raven black, a sign of his twisted being, marred that beauty into something truly terrible.

With one hand, Amal traced the cut across his face. He would find his master's staff, and then he would find her, and enjoy his long awaited revenge.


	8. Chapter 9

Woo another update...this chapter took a lot of work actually...I had to write it several times, before I found a good enough scenario to fit my unrealisticly high ideals. So I hope that you enjoy the version that I very enjoyed writing.

Thank you to those that reviewed, and please continue to do so. And to those that read but don't review, "Review! Krael Commands you, and so you must obey!" Ahem...anyways, seriously review...it helps me. And hey, someone will be able to be the lucky 100.

**Author's Notes:**

The Artain Jungle has now been renamed the Artain Forest. This comes about because unless my grade school geography lessons failed me horribly. I don't know of a jungle that recieves any amount of snow. Sorry if this causes confusion but it does make sense.

Also, sorry if this also caused any confusion, but one might have noticed that several chapters have disappeared, that is because I merged all those that were split into multiple parts into one full chapter.

**Disclaimer**

And sorry again if there are errors, I don't proffread my stuff much, only enough to make sure sentences kind of make sense.**  
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Chapter 10 – A New Friend 

A rustling of padded feet against stone rudely aroused Natsuki from an oddly pleasant slumber. Groaning the halfling cracked open tired eyes, the sun had yet to rise fully, and an orangeish glow was cast across the cave floor. All around her the pack of wolves that called this cave their home were waking, getting ready for a day of hunting, though the halfling could not get a clear view of the beasts in the darker inner-cave. The wolves staying clear of the magical fire that still burned brightly on the stone floor.

Natsuki sighed, leaning back into the cool stone wall of the cave. Her muscles ached from magical exhaustion, and she wanted nothing more than to slip back into the comforts of slumber. However she knew that simple wish would not be granted, seeing as how once the halfling was awake, she was awake for the day. A curse she had no hopes of curing.

Deciding that it would be better for her to get up, and accomplish something rather than sit in the dark cave, and accomplish nothing. Standing, she carefully untangled herself from Shizuru, setting the sleeping Princess gently down on the stone floor. Despite the sharp protesting of her limbs, Natsuki was glad to be moving.

Quickly soothing a painful crick out of her neck, Natsuki peered down at the sleeping girl before her. She looked so peaceful lying there, that it pained the halfling that she had put Shizuru through yesterday's ordeals. While at the time Natsuki had no choice but to investigate no matter what, now she was feeling guilty. Shizuru could have very well died because of her irrational actions, a fact that bothered Natsuki for unknown reasons. Natsuki sighed, shaking her head free of the depressing thoughts. What was done, was done, and nothing would change that. So it did no good for the halfling to brood over it.

Hoping to clear her mind Natsuki turned on the spot, proceeding to the mouth of the cave, eager for open air. She took a moment to examine her clothing. Happy to find that they had dried, she took a moment to slip into the armor. She did not want to be exposed for a moment, especially while she was still in this forest. After managing the slight hassle of putting on the leather pieces by herself. Natsuki went for her weapons, but only managed to grasp stones.

Frantic, Natsuki searched the immediate vicinity for the familiar icy blue hilts. It only took her a second to realize that the elvish crafted blades were not here. The halfling let out a silent moan, as she sank to the stone floor distraught. The twin kris were as much a part of herself as her own heart was. And even though she knew that as soon as she was in a state to cast spells again, she could easily invoke the enchantments placed upon the blades to bring them back to her. To be seperated from the crystal weapons, for even a moment, was unbearable.

Natsuki remained motionless for some time, before she finally broke through the dark void, of finding her blades missing. Thinking clearly again, she made for open air. Though no sooner than she had exited the natural shelter, a warming sensation surrounded her neck. The halfling thought nothing of it however, and continued walking. But just after taking a few more steps, a strong shock coursed through the halflings body, making her jump back in surprise. Cursing Natsuki brought a hand to her neck, she touched the crystal set inside. The collar forgotten in her groggy state. Natsuki let out a sigh, and while she had so wanted to explore the area a bit, she resigned to sit where she stood.

The halfling stared at the rising sun, the sky had gone from orange, to it's usual sapphire blue. Snow white clouds drifted lazily across the endless expanse. The day was warm, despite being so late in the year, and a gentle breeze blew through the meadow. Natsuki let out a deep breathe, feeling at ease with herself. Where ever the two had landed, the evil taint left by Necra and her ilk had yet to twist the area in it's dark embrace, and it calmed her. The past few days, seemed like it had been a millennium, to the halfling, and she still could not believe it all.

Natsuki's meditation was cut short, when footsteps thudded behind her,_ I cannot remember when the last time we have been graced with one of the forest folk. May I ask what brings you here?_

Natsuki was not surprised when the deep, elderly voice echoed through her head, "I am sorry, great one. But it was only an accident that we stumbled upon your den. I beg forgiveness for intruding upon your pack so suddenly." She replied with the utmost courtesy.

_It is no bother child, I am happy to have met another of your kind before I passed on. But you have not explained what has brought you here, and with one from the clan of humans no less._ The voice answered, Natsuki felt a large mass sit beside her. She did not physically acknowledge her new-found companions presence.

"We were investigating ruins deep within the forest..." Natsuki was going to continue but her current companion cut her off.

_You talk of the tainted land. Tell me child of the forest, will you be able to remedy it? _The quickness of his speech betrayed the calm tone of the voice.

Natsuki shook her head, "I am sorry, elder. But I cannot. Though I am confused, what of the others of my clan. Where are they, and why did they not stop the taint in the first place?"

_I am sorry child. I do not know. The forest folk have long since left this place. It must have been several decades ago, at the very least, since they abandoned the forest._

"Abandoned?!" Natsuki asked shocked. Her meditation totally shot, she looked over to her companion. Beside her sat a beast of immense size. Sitting on it's haunches, the dire wolf, was at the very least seven feet tall. It's fur was an iron gray, and a mane of pure white grew shaggily across the magnificent beast's neck. It's great maw was filled with sharp incisors, and had enough strength to bite through even the greatest dwarven metal smithing. The great wolf looked down at Natsuki with gentle yellow eyes, eyes that displayed an uncanny intelligence, "What do you mean abandoned?"

_Just what it sounds like child. One day they were just gone. I do not know where they went, but it was quite a blow to all the creatures of the forest. Do you think they foresaw the taint, and left because of it?_

"No..." Natsuki said with confidence, though in her mind she was uncertain, "They would not have abandoned their forest to suffer, there must have been another reason."

_You are right child, the forest folk would not have abandoned us so readily. I am sorry, it is just that the taint is slowly destroying this place, and it is making it hard for my pack to live. Many of the other animals have already moved on, and we will have to follow soon. Lest we become tainted as well._

Natsuki listened to the wolf's plight gravely, "I am sorry..." She had no other words to give.

_Do not be sorry child. We are strong, this is but a minor inconvenience._The wolf replied.

"Where will you go then?"

_To the north, to the realm of the dwarves. _The elder wolf responded quickly, _Much to what will be their displeasure._

"That is a long journey, will you be alright?" Natsuki asked worriedly, the pack had many pups who were not meant to make long trips.

_We will be fine_. The wolf responded with confidence, though to Natsuki he did not sound to sure of himself. She kept the thought to herself though, _We are not like our smaller cousins, we can take care of ourselves. _He added, slight humor in his voice.

"I see...Well I wish you the best of luck on your journey. May the gods watch over you." Natsuki said with sincerity, lightly touching the dire wolf on it's haunch.

_Thank you child. That means much to me._ The wolf responded, _Now then, I think there is something you want to ask me?_

Natsuki was taken aback by the question. It had been a long time since she had spoken with a dire wolf, she forgotten how preceptive the animals could be, "Yes, there is. I want to know about the taint." She responded, using the wolf's term.

_Hmm._The wolf mused the question, taken a moment to scratch his massive head, _Well child of the forest, the taint has always been here. Ever since I was a pup, that area was always filled with evil. But it never presented a problem for the forest. The forest folk kept it in check, and so life went on. _The wolf paused for a moment taking a deep breathe, which sounded like a sigh to the halfling, _Even after the forest folk had left, the evil was kept contained. Until... _The wolf paused, changing positions, so that he lay across the gentle grass.

"Until?"

_Until maybe a month ago_. He continued,_A small group from the clan of humans came, and started to investigate around the tainted lands. I did not want to take any chances, so I gathered several of the packs that make their homes here, to scare them off._

"Though that did not work did it?"

The wolf shook his great head, _It did. But seven cycles later the clan of humans came back, much larger in number, and with weapons. I did not want to put any of mine or the other packs to harm, so I let them be. After about a week of their continued working, another clan of beings joined the clan of humans._

"Wait..." Natsuki interrupted, "Beings?"

_Yes child, they were always garbed in robes of the blackest night, so we could not gaze upon them. None of my clan could name them spiritually, not even the eldest among us. I am sorry, but after they showed up is when the taint started to spread. After that moment, the clan of humans started to thin, and the other clan was not seen from again. We thought they had done whatever they came to do, and had gone._

"I see..." Natsuki said with a sigh, looking towards the still rising sun. She was slightly disappointed that the dire wolf could not tell her anymore than she already knew.

_You are disappointed..._ The wolf beside her stated sadly, _I am sorry I could not tell you what you seek to know._

"There is no need to apologize, Elder. I am not disappointed at all."

_Hmm..._ The giant wolf mused, positioning itself so that he stared directly into Natsuki's eyes. He squinted, _Are you sure child of the forest?_ He asked, to Natsuki he sounded amused. _You should not try to hide things from a dire wolf._ He said, spreading his mouth in an odd sort of smile, pearly white teeth glinted in the sunlight.

"_FeKrâ_!" A voice, familiar to Natsuki's ears, called out from behind the halfling. An instant later, and Natsuki felt a rush of heat breeze past her right arm.

The fireball connected cleanly with the large wolf's side, and the smell of burning fur filled the air. Natsuki stared at the alpha wolf in shock, not able to register what had just happened. She watched as the wolf closed his mouth slowly, before he turned to gaze at where the fireball had hit him. The alpha, returned his gaze forward, this time not looking at Natsuki, but rather over the halfling's shoulder.

_It seems you human companion has awakened. _The wolf stated, with the least bit of malice in his voice, _Would you mind talking to her, I think, she thinks, that I mean you harm. I do not enjoy being singed with fire, forest child. Kindly ask her to stop. I would do it myself, but that may cause more harm than good._

"R-Right..." Natsuki muttered quickly standing, silently thankful that Shizuru's action had not enraged the wolf. An angry dire wolf was just as deadly as a fully grown dragon, not even she would have been able to stop him, even if she was at the peak of her power. Because even if their fur could be burned and cut, the flesh underneath was as hard as dragonscale, and immune to any sort of magical energies.

She turned towards the cave entrance, to find Shizuru, clothed, and ready for a fight. Natsuki closed the gap quickly. Grasping Shizuru by the arm, the halfling pulled the princess into the stone enclosure.

"What do you think you're doing?!" Natsuki hissed, as quiet as possible. There were still many wolves in the den, despite most had left to hunt. But that did not say it was in the least bit reprimanding.

"I was protecting Natsuki from that creature." Shizuru replied simply, her expression unreadable to the halfling.

"That_ creature_ is a dire wolf, don't you know how dangerous they are? Your a mage for crying out loud." Natsuki responded, slightly calmer.

"A dire wolf? I am sorry Natsuki, but such creatures do not exist, just like dragons, and dwarves, and elves and the like." Shizuru said with certainty, "They are mythical beings, fabricated for children's stories."

_Mythical being?_ The Alpha Wolf interrupted Natsuki's retort before she even had a chance to talk. Natsuki turned to see the alpha standing in front of the cave, effectivly blocking out most of the natural light that filtered into the cave. Standing the wolf had more than a foot over the two women, _Clan of human, I do not believe I am a mythical being. Do your kind really not believe we exist?_

"Natsuki?" The halfling heard a light whisper in her ear, "Did, it just talk?"

_She is not joking, is she? Child of the forest. _The wolf asked amused, as he lowered his enormous head down to to Shizuru's level.

"Child of the forest?" Shizuru repeated slowly, Natsuki could feel a scrutinizing stare on her back, but ignored it.

"He isn't dangerous Shizuru, you don't have to worry." Natsuki stated hoping to divert the conversation away from the wolf's recent comment, meanwhile moving from between Shizuru and the alpha.

"If Natsuki says so." Shizuru replied, cautiously reaching up and caressing the large head in front of her.

Almost immediately after the princess had touched the Alpha, he moved away suddenly, proceeding farther into the cave, _Now that that is all cleared up. I must attend to a small matter, I might suggest you stand to the side. Or maybe leaving the cave would even be a better idea._

Natsuki looked at the back of the alpha, as he retreated farther into the cave. He disappeared into the blackness of the deepest recess of a cave, Natsuki previously did not think existed. The halfling caught Shizuru's gaze, offering only a shrug as a response to the wolf's cryptic phrase.

Just then a low, deep bark emanated from the back of the cave, the noise echoing across the walls. In response an uncountable number of young shrill barks resounded in an answer. The echo transformed the sound into an unbearable piercing shriek, causing both Natsuki and Shizuru to cover her ears lest she go deaf. Though it did not do much to mute the sounds. Another low bark sounded, even over the unyielding sharper ones, and the young instantly quieted. The cave quickly shifted from barks, to the sounds of paws against stone. Many, many paws.

Natsuki realized that she, and Shizuru were in the line of oncoming rush, she knew was coming. Acting quickly, Natsuki thrust herself towards Shizuru, grasping the princess by the arms, pinning her to the wall. Natsuki pushed herself into the princess, hoping to make themselves as small a target as possible.

The halfling had not acted a moment to soon. No sooner than they had hit the wall, a mass of furry bodies broke the wall of darkness. Running in a full, unadulterated sprint, dozens of young wolf pups pushed passed the two women and out into open sunlight. If Natsuki had not moved, both women would have been easily trampled by the nearly four foot tall pups.

The danger past, Natsuki withdrew herself quickly from Shizuru, very aware of how close in proximity they had just been, "I'm sorry for that." Natsuki muttered turning from Shizuru, and towards the mouth of the cave, where the pups had started playing in the meadow.

"Ara, why is Natsuki apologizing? You saved my life, there is no need to apologize for that."

Shizuru's statement really set bothered the hlafling. Why exactly was she apologizing? Natsuki couldn't grasp a clear cut reason. She had live decades, centuries even, living among the human culture, and not once had she cared nor ever got close to anyone. She sure as hell would never have gone as far as to apologize to one for anything. It was their fault that she had lived her life in relative solitude, and their fault the past war, that almost destroyed the entire world had happened. Two facts that she would never forgive them for. Yet this human, a young woman no less, had managed to break through the barriers she had meticulously perfected over her long life, and she had to answer as to how or why.

Natsuki turned her head to look at the princess, who still stood against the stone wall. The halfling caught Shizuru's gaze and held it. A smile was spread across Shizuru's face, yet Natsuki could not tell if her companion was happy. In fact, Natsuki couldn't tell if Shizuru was anything at all, and it caused her to scowl. Reading humans was about as second nature to the halfling as eating, sleeping or fighting, and not being able to read this one's bothered Natsuki.

"And what might Natsuki be thinking off?" Shizuru broke the silence. Moving from the wall, and towards Natsuki.

"N-Nothing." Natsuki cursed herself for stuttering, and took a step back. The night in that garden coming clear to the halflings mind.

"Is that so?" Shizuru responded, not missing a beat. Again she moved closer to Natsuki, but stopped when a clicking sound interrupted there conversation.

Both women turned towards the dark interior of the cave. Out from the darkness, padded along another pup, a female pup. Natsuki cocked an eye as she stared at the calm wolf, wolf pups were not known for there calm nature, most pups were like those that had rushed past them earlier. Energetic and untamed. Not calm and collected, traits that this odd pup radiated.

The pup walked in between both women, without so much as a sidewards glance. Natsuki did not stop watching the pup as it stopped at the cave mouth, and watched the others of it's kind. The pup let out an odd sort of sound akin to a sigh. It started to pass into the meadow before it stopped in midstep, deciding to lay at the mouth instead of partake in the play of the other pups.

Beside her, Natsuki heard Shizuru move, looking over she was surprised to see the princess walk towards the wolf pup. Alarmed, Natsuki was quick to stay close to the princess. Dire wolf pups were not like there grown counterparts. The pups were very sporadic, and wild. Even elves had a hard time understanding the thoughts of a pup. Only the Alpha of a pack had any sort of control over a pup, and only under his orders had the pups stayed away from the two women.

"Shizuru..." Natsuki called out warringly, as the princess knelt beside the head of the lying pup. The pup showed no reaction to the princess as it continued to stare at the others, "You shouldn't do that. It's dangerous"

"Dangerous?" Shizuru asked, looking from the pup to Natsuki. "I do not see anything dangerous about this one." And without waiting for an answer, the princess reached towards the pup, touching the furry head directly behind the ears.

At the sudden touch the pup cranned its head to stare at Shizuru. Natsuki watched, ready to act, as the two held watched each other. Then in a flurry of movement, that Natsuki marvelled at, the pup sprang from it's position. It knocked Shizuru to the stone floor, and positioned itself upon her, pinning the princess to the spot.

Natsuki started to move, but stopped when she noticed something odd. The wolf pup just stared

down at the princess in silence. It did not growl in warning, it did not bark in excitement, it just stood there gazing at Shizuru. Then the miraculous happened, the wolf started to lick the princess' face affectionately, earning a fit of giggles from the woman.

Natsuki stared at the scene speechless. She had never seen a wolf pup act in such a way, not even to an elf, let alone a human. She stared at Shizuru. The human was a conundrum to the halfling, in all her years she had never, ever, once met another one like her. Natsuki vowed right then and there, that she would find out what made this human so different from the others of her race, no matter how long it might take.


	9. Chapter 10 Slightly Rewritten

"Ugh..." Natsuki groaned as she slowly came to. She was physically drained, and couldn't move a muscle, a side effect of the spell casted on her. Cracking her eyes open was all she could manage, and doing so Natsuki was greeted by a view of the cavern ceiling, shadows dancing delicately across the craggy expanse. As she became more and more aware a prickling sensation started to stab at her stomach. With every breath she took, it felt as if a thousand needles were piercing her gut. Though the halfling had, had worse, and merely shrugged the large bruise off as a minor inconvenience.

"Ahhh...so finally you wake, and just in time to see the revival as well." Natsuki heard the voice of the lead mage sneer somewhere off to her left. Natsuki tried to speak, however she found she wasn't able to. As if reading her thoughts the mage started to speak again, "Can't speak hmm?" He said with a chuckle, "By now I assume you already know who I am, my dear Natsuki, so I must say... I have amplified the spell a bit since our last encounter. Though I'm sure you already figured that one out as well, considering you succumbed so easily." The hooded head of the mage appeared in Natsuki's vision, and try as she might she was rooted to her position. Completely at the man's mercy.

"You know..." The man said protruding two silver, ruby encrusted daggers from each of his robe's sleeves, "I was quite disappointed when I didn't meet you in Kahruhn." At the mention of the name, Natsuki tensed slightly, "I've touched a nerve it seems..." He laughed before clearing his throat, "As I was saying... I thought maybe you had gone and died on me before I could have my revenge." He continued, kneeling beside Natsuki, "But now..." He let out a small chuckle, bringing the tiny blade in his right hand to hover over Natsuki's face, gently resting the edge between her eyes. Despite her condition, Natsuki remained calm, focusing on breaking the spell over her instead.

"Now, You seemingly drop right into my lap. I must be graced with the favor of the gods." Natsuki felt the blade across her face bite softly into her skin, a small flow of blood trickling down her cheek but she ignored the pain, staying focused. She could feel sensation returning to her extremities and with some concentration started to move her fingers.

"You have no idea how long I've waited for this moment!" The man hissed in seething anger, a stark contrast to his previous calm demeanor, raking the dagger quickly across Natsuki's face, cutting a large gash from her brow to her jaw. Natsuki grimaced, letting out a muffled cry, as blood flowed freely from the wound. The concentration she once had gone, she fell back into a paralyzed state.

The man above her crackled insanely, "You know...Red's a good color for you my dear." He said disappearing out of Natsuki's narrow line of sight, "Though you know..." The man said thoughtfully, "That's not nearly enough to satisfy me." Natsuki felt the flat end of one of his daggers slide across her throat and rest there.

"I know that Necra will want to see you alive and well... But, I'm sure she won't mind if your a little beat up, eh?" The mage let out another laugh, withdrawing the blade from his captive's throat. Natsuki let out a silent sight of relief, though it was short lived as a searing pain wracked her body from her right shoulder.

The man above her laughed as he sank one of his daggers into the soft flesh of Natsuki's shoulder. He slid it in up to the hilt, giving it a small twist when it was fully in, earning a cry from Natsuki. He smiled, "What a great sound." He sneered, "How does it feel my dear. To know that you are at my mercy." The man's hooded head appeared in Natsuki's already diminishing vision. The halfling knew that if she didn't do anything soon, she would bleed out long before she was brought to Necra. Neither were promising events to her.

"Though..." The mage mused, "I'm a fair man." He said laughing at his own joke, meanwhile stroking the non bloody side of Natsuki's face, "And while I do so love seeing that lovely face of yours twisted with pain. It just doesn't feel fulfilling enough." The mage said right before he slammed an open palm down hard into her gut, exactly where she had been hit earlier by the mage's staff. Causing an otherwise minor hit to cause the halfelf an excruciating amount of pain.

On reflex Natsuki sprang up, bringing her arms to cover her stomach, only causing her more pain from the dagger in her shoulder. Despite the new influx of pain, she stilled her tongue, not wanting to give her opponent any more satisfaction over her predicament, then he already had been given.

Not caring why she had been freed from her bondage, Natsuki set to curing her wounds. First she focused on the cut across her face, not bothering with spell words she healed the wound with a quick thought, not caring if it took more power from her than if she had casted the spell with an incantation. The effects were immediate, both the physical and mental effects of the wound were gone in an instant.. The gash on her face taken care of, Natsuki turned her sights to the silver dagger in her shoulder. She grimaced as she gripped the handle, even the slightest vibration sent waves of pain through her; Without hesitation, she slid the blade out quickly, and while the pain was unbearable, the halfling managed to keep quiet as she casted another healing spell on the wound.

After her wounds were taking care of Natsuki stood shakily; Turning to face the robed man in the process. Behind the mage was Nathiax, still in his eternal slumber. However Natsuki was dismayed to see that out of the ten binding crystals that imprisoned the great beast, only two remained, and the other mages were still working tirelessly on breaking the seal. To make matters worse as she stared at the beast, one of the crystals seemingly phased out of existence, leaving only one left keeping the monster at bay. She also noticed that beside her lay the still unconscious form of Shizuru. The princess looked unharmed, which brought some relief to the halfling, for reasons she could not put a finger on.

"Ah, Like our handy work?" The Mage in front of her spoke with glee, and bringing Natsuki out of her thoughts. He turned his back to the halfelf before he continued to talk, "It won't be long until we have freed his greatness, and when we do we will be unstoppable. The land will be plunged into total darkness, and there will be no army that can stop us, especially after you and your kinds actions after the last war." The man turned back to face Natsuki, "Though...that is someways away, I'd much rather be focusing on the here and now, don't you agree my dear?"

Natsuki responded to the mage's question by throwing the silver dagger in her hand with a quick flick of her wrist. The dagger sailed quickly through the air, however just as the blade was going to impale itself in the mage's head, he snatched the weapon out of the air with inhuman reflexes. He gave the blade a few quick twirls before it vanished in a small flash of light, "Tsk, tsk, tsk, It's not nice playing with other people's toys you know." The mage said with another laugh.

"How did you break free?" Natsuki demanded more than questioned.

"Hmmm..." The mage mused, his right hand disappearing under his hood, "That's my little secret" He answered simply, and with a laugh, "Plus, you should be worried more about yourself, instead of others." He said with a shrug, "I'm going to make sure you suffer for the pains you've caused me!" The mage yelled, and without warning, rushed Natsuki with elven-like speed. As he closed the distance, identical scimitars of an onyx black appeared in his hands in a flash of black mist. One glowed a fierce green, while the other sparked with a neon purple. As he neared the halfling he arced both blades in a sideswiping motion in front of him. From the two swords two waves of energy shot out in long trails. The waves the respective colors from their respective sword.

Natsuki quickly erected a magic barrier in front of her. The two arcs of energy connected with the barrier and fizzled out. However the barrier didn't stop the entire length of the dual blasts, and the magic impacted with the rock face behind her. Where the green wave of energy hit, the rock was instantaneously melted into magma; Where the purple wave hit, the rock was decimated in a small explosion. Natsuki watched with sheer awe at the tremendous power of her opponents weapons.

However she quickly returned her thoughts to the battle, and just in time too. The mage had fully closed the distance between them, and was bringing his weapons slicing down at her. The halfling executed a quick sidestep, unsheathing the longsword she was currently holding with her right hand, and sliced at at the mage. Her opponent however stopped his current attack on a dime, and met Natsuki's weapon with his green scimitar. As they impacted an unearthly cry pierced the room, a by-product of the materials the two fighter's weapons were made of being clashed together.

The mage brought his other weapon down, aiming at Natsuki's head. Natsuki quickly dropped the sheath she was holding in her left hand, and drew her other kris, blocking the purple sword mere inches from her ear. As the two blades met, a few strands of the scimitar's purple glow sprang into the air, and touched Natsuki giving the halfling a significant jolt as electricity surged throughout her body. Surprised, Natsuki broke the weapon lock the two fighter's were in, pushing the mage back as she hopped backwards.

"Hehehe." The mage crackled, "In case you hadn't noticed, I've upgraded a bit since our last excursion. How do you like it? You're the first person I've encountered, since we were freed from out blasted imprisonment that hasn't died in a single attack. I'm grateful for that, you know. All my other fights have been so droll. I thought that once I got back to the surface i'd be able to test my skills freely." He said lowering his guard, resting the green glowing weapon on his shoulder, without any harmful effects, "I know back during the war, there was no end to worthwhile opponents, even a fair share of humans could last a few minutes with me before I finished them off. But now, not one single fighter in Kahruhn could meet my standards. I can't even tell you how many elves I slaughtered without even breaking a sweat." He finished with a laugh.

Natsuki had heard enough, she brought a spell to the forefront of her mind, and with a quick wave of her hand a torrent of ice shards formed and were hurled at her opponent. She was quick to follow behind the shards, and as the mage concentrated on errecting a barrier to protect himself, Natsuki swung around to his side, and aimed for a killing blow. She sliced for his neck, intent on decapitating him. But the mage managed to react quick enough, and side stepped the blow. Immediately he counted with a spell of his own, he shot a ball of black fire upwards, aiming for the halfling's chest. Natsuki quickly a barrier at the last second, the heat singing her hair a bit, but not doing any serious damage. Amal fired another ball of fire, and another, and another, in a seemingly endless barrage, and Natsuki had to stay rooted to her position, less she be burned alive.

"What's wrong Natsuki?" The mage sneered, attempting to break through her shield, "Have the centuries had such a profound affect on you? I was hoping that you might pose some sort of challenge, you don't want to disappoint me now do you?"

Natsuki answered the question with a grunt, she waited for another ball to come at her, and right before contact she ducked the ball, and fired a blast of wind at the mage. The attack was enough to surprise the mage, and collided with him full force. The wind was enough to knock him off his feet, and off the edge of the platform. She smirked when she heard a resounding splash below.

The halfling knew that her little stunt would only give her small window of time, and so she hurried towards the closest magic user, intent on killing him before Nathiax had been freed. She knew that every other member of the mage's order would need total concentration on breaking the wyrm's bonds, and could not do anything else. If one member was felled, the entire process would be broken and the undead creature would stay sleeping. At least for a little while longer.

However before she even got halfway to her target, a swirl of black fire formed in front of her, and a moment later she felt a foot connect with her face, sending the halfling to the ground hard. However before she hit rock, she caught herself with her right hand, and with a roundhouse was back on her feet. In front of her was the mage, not even a shred of his clothing damp from his recent incursion into the water below. However a visible trail of smoke rose from the man, a reaction from being submersed in the holy liquid.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk." The mage reprimanded Natsuki, waving his purple sword back and forth infront of him, "Your fight is with me my dear. Please leave the other's out of this. That is of course if you don't care about your little friend either." He threatened joyfully. Natsuki clenched the hilts of her kris tightly, earning a laugh from the mage, "I see you understand, good...good. Now then, where were we?" The mage said before attacking Natsuki again.

This time Natsuki was ready though, and ran to meet the mage. The two met in a frenzy of slashing, parrying and dodging. Both fighting on even ground. Attack after attack was launched, and countered by the other, in a deadly dance. Each time Natsuki's blades met the mage's fire and electricity filled the sky, accompanied by the insane screeching of the metal's clashing against each other. They were completely on even ground, neither willing to yield an inch as they circled each other.

"Hahaha, this is more like it Natsuki!" The mage yelled exuberantly as he slashed at the halfling's neck only for the blow to be deflected away forcing the mage to quickly sidestep the halfling lest he be skewed by an icy blue blade., "I knew you still had it in you."

Natsuki blocked another attack, this one a stab to her gut before she leaped backwards several feet, and with an uppercut of one of her blades, launched a crescent moon shaped shard of ice towards her opponent. The mage responded with an uppercut of his own, firing a similarly shaped crescent of fire. The two impacted immediately turning into a billow of steam.

The two paused for a moment, both breathing noticeably harder, though neither struggling to get oxygen to their lungs. Just then a noticeable cracking filled the cavern, and Natsuki watched as the last of the binding crystals shattered into millions of tiny fragments, the pieces disappearing into thin air as soon as they broke away from the core shard.

The mage laughed, "It is done my dear!" He continued to laugh, his weapons disappearing from his hands. As he did so, the other mages all congregated around their leader, all obviously pleased at there work.

The crystals gone, Nathiax stirred taking a deep breath. The noise clearly audible, as his huge lungs filled with air. As the beast exhaled , a long spout of black fire shot out from both the beasts great maw, as well as his nostrils, the flames melting the stone floor quickly.

Natsuki watched for a moment in horror before she came to her senses and quickly, yet silently made her way to the still unconscious Shizuru. Sheathing her one weapon, and picking up her discarded casing, sheathing that one as well The gap between her and the princess was closed quickly, and Natsuki scooped her up. She didn't want either of them to be around when the beast actually woke from his slumber. Though she was content with knowing that the mages were in for a rude awakening.

However her hope to escape unnoticed was shattered when a tremendous gust of wind, threatened to knock the halfling and princess off the edge of the island. Natsuki turned to see Nathiax stretching his wings, and starting to stand facing the only exit to the outside. Once up, the great beast let out a roar so loud, it shook large amounts of rock loose from the ceiling. When the sound was over some ten seconds later, Natsuki's ears were ringing, though she could still hear the lead mage talking.

"Lord Nathiax." He addressed the beast with a deep bow, the other mages behind him mimicked the motion, "It is good to see you well."

Nathiax didn't answer, he merely regarded the congregation in front of him blankly. Natsuki looked at the lead mage, she could tell he noticed something was amiss, and she silently laughed at his plight. A second later Nathiax struck out. With a surprisingly quick swipe of one of his massive claws he wiped out the entire group of mages, cutting them all clean in half. However the lead was quick enough to warp away, mere seconds before he would have been gored along with the rest.

"What did you do?!" The mage screamed in anger appearing directly in front Natsuki. Natsuki ducked just in time to dodge an attack from both of the mage's scimitar's, "What have you done?!" He yelled again this time waiting to strike until he received an answer.

"A failsafe." Natsuki responded, relishing in the mage's anger, "We thought something like this might have happened. Or maybe I should say my _brethren_." Natsuki uttered the word brethren with the upmost contempt, "thought something like this would happen. They destroyed his mind, he's just a mindless beast now. I just wanted to kill the thing, but they didn't seem to agree with me." She said with pleasure. Behind the mage, Natsuki watched as Nathiax turned his attention from the bloodied mass of bodies in front of him to them.

The halfling decided that it was time for her to make her exit, before she became just another body like the other mages. Quickly she fell backwards, falling over the side of the island toward the holy water below. Natsuki heard the mage above her scream in anger, immediately following was another loud roar from Nathiax, and a plume of bright blue mist illuminated the dark cavern.

As Natsuki fell through the air, she had to watch in horror as the undead dragon flexed it's wings and leap into the air. But the maddened dragon had nowhere to go, and collided with the cavern ceiling. He was sent careening back to the island with such force that the thin pillar that held the island cracked and splintered. The island started to fall, and Natsuki had to hope the rock wouldn't crush them under the water.

But she did not have time to think as she slammed into the water below. The holy water engulfed the two in it's icy grip forcing Natsuki to act fast, lest the two catch any sort of cold-related illness. Natsuki tried to calm her mind down, in order to correctly pinpoint a destination in order to cast her teleport spell, so they didn't end up in a tree or under several feet of soil. However the chillness was affecting her greatly, and she couldn't manage to think clearly. Rather than chance freezing to death, Natsuki casted her spell anyway, praying to the gods that it wouldn't get her killed. And if she did die she would die knowing that the dragon would die as well.

--

As soon as her feet touched solid earth Natsuki immediately fell to her knees in exhaustion. It took all her energy to even continue carrying Shizuru, whom just minutes before was like carrying a pillow in her arms. Natsuki gently placed the still unconscious girl on the ground, before she rose shakily to her feet.

Once Standing she looked around the area, trying to get even the slightest idea of where she had ended up as a result of her randomly casted teleport. The halfling quickly noticed that the trees surrounding her were the same as the ones she had sensed were tainted earlier. Which also meant that she was still in the boundaries of the Artain Forest. However here there was no evidence of any kind of magical taint to the environment, meaning that the two women were far from the academy ruins. Which also meant that they were far from any sort of rescue from the other knights that had accompanied them.

Natsuki wondered what had happened to them, and what they might think of the duo's dissapearing act. No doubt they had come back to find them gone more than half a day ago, since it had been before noon when they had arrived, and now it was closing in on midnight. She wondered how long the others would look for them, and what would happen when they didn't find them. Though Natsuki was fairly certain she would be more than able to get them back to Fuuka safely by morning.

However a quick breeze reminded the halfling that now wasn't the time to think about matters out of her hand. She and Shizuru were still soaked to the bone, and needed to find some semblance of a shelter, and quick.

Natsuki slowly sat down, cross-legged and slowly eased her weary mind. She focused on the surrounding forest, and the life that flowed around her. She let her spirit meld with those of the forest, from the ancient trees, to newborn cubs, and even to the grasses. She saw, one by one, through the eyes of each of the spirits of the forest, each image flashing by rapidly, much to fast for a normal person to make any sense of. She continued to shift through the flora and fauna of the forest until she found what she had been looking for; a large cave to provide the two protection for the night. She was ecstatic to find that the crude shelter was barely a five minute walk from where they had landed. Happy with her find, Natsuki slowly let herself out of her trance-like state. Once back to her own body, Natsuki quickly made her way to Shizuru. She knelt next to the brunette and tried her hand at lifting her, but to no avail. Natsuki was still much to drained.

Sighing Natsuki looked at the plate mail arm-guards and greaves that the princes wore. The halfling could tell that they were wonderfully crafted, at least by human standards. Which also meant they were most likely outrageously expensive, which in turn made Natsuki hesitate for a moment. But when another quick gust of wind attacked the halfling. She quickly moved into action.

"_Peil_" She said strongly, using the last bit of her magic to shatter the princess' armor. With the extra weight gone, Natsuki easily lifted her up, activated her elvish sight, and started towards the cave.

--

The trip to the cave taxed Natsuki more than she had wished, but they had nonetheless arrived relatively intact. Though the halfling had managed to gain her fair share of cuts and bruises, from the very dense foliage.

The cave itself was set into a large cliff, that rose more than fifty feet upwards. To the side of the shelter was a rather large river, complete with a waterfall. Though Natsuki would have liked the cascading water to not have been there at all. The noise the falling water made would make it impossible for Natsuki to hear any sort of enemy that might cross their path. Though, the halfling judged that the cave was so far into the jungle that any sort of human contact was slim to none.

However that didn't mean that animal contact was impossible. Immediately after crossing the entrance to the cave, Natsuki was greeted by the piercing gaze of a dozen pairs of yellow eyes. A pack of wolves. Natsuki stood at the cave mouth, completely still. She knew she was in no immediate danger, but she was still surprised fact to walk in. Shortly after the silent exchange the pack, conveying that she meant no harm. Satisfied the wolves quickly lost interest in the new comers, and even went so far as to shuffle over, to accommodate the two women.

Sighing in relief Natsuki set Shizuru on the surprisingly smooth cave floor, and went to work. Without a second thought, Natsuki stripped both her and the princess of their damp clothing, leaving them both bare-skinned. The halfling took a moment to spread out their clothing along the mouth of the cave, hoping that they would dry by the morning.

Her work finished quickly, Natsuki turned back to the inside of the cave. Ready to call an end to the day. She stumbled her way through the darkness, to tired to even use her elvish sight to get her through. Finding her way back to Shizuru, she positioned herself against one of the cave's walls, and propped up the princess against her front, and while she knew that this was all for survival. Natsuki couldn't help but blush at the bare contact between the two.

As a method of escape, more than anything. Natsuki, with the last remaining bit of magic, conjured a small flame in front of them, to ensure their warmth through the night. The spell cast, Natsuki sank into a deep and comforting sleep almost instanly.

--

The streets of Artai were unusually bare. Though it was not uncommon for the streets to be empty during the winter months. Where the snows fell early, and the cold white would bury the city in it's icy grip; But the first snows were still several weeks away, and at this time of the year the many brace souls who called Artai their home would be stocking up for the long snowy siege.

Yet, there were no merchants peddling their wares, nor the common folk purchasing them. There were no children roaming the streets and alleys playing their games, nor attempting to liberate a fresh meal from the street stands. Not even the deep piercing barks of dogs, or the shrill neighing of horses pierced the still quiet.

However, while the city was in fact a ghost town. A small influx of activity broke the eerie calm. In the city square, a lone figure appeared in a plume of black fire. He landed on one knee, gasping for breath, fury in his heart. But the feeling was quickly quelled, and the man rose to his feet, anger would do him no good, and if he was to break the news of the great Wyrm's condition he would need to be as calm and reposed as he possibly could.

But no sooner than he had risen, the area around him burst into a frenzy of action. From the surrounding houses and shops burst dozens of monstrous beasts. Like a well-rehearsed play, the legion of creatures surrounded the mage, snarling through long, razor-sharp teeth big enough to force their mouths perpetually open. Each of them measured almost double the mage's height, and were covered in a thick spine covered carapace, harder than any steel. Their arms, which measured close to the entire length of their body, ended in a set of five claws made for gutting their victims. They were in fact, bred to kill, and nothing more, their eyes did not betray that fact. They glowed a blood red, and had no iris' to speak off, and while they did not show any trace of possible intelligence. It was made up by the fact of the sheer terror just glancing at the red sockets could instill upon a man.

One of the creatures stepped forward from the ring that surrounded the mage. Many of the spines across his body were broken, and a large scar ran across his face. Scars from the many battles it had to fight to be leader of the pack of bloodthirsty creatures.

The mage sighed, he did not have time to waste on these pathetic beasts. Every time he came back to the capital, he had to deal with them again and again. It was such a hassle, and he wondered how the stupid things could not learn their lesson, and leave him be. It would be so much easier if he could warp to the castle itself, but the city square was the closest he could magically enter the city, due to the large barrier that had been cast around a greater part of the inner city.

The lead creature let out a loud howl, silencing the rest of the beasts, who had been roaring and growling constantly at the mage. The beast lumbered towards his supposed prey. The mage looked at him straight in the eyes, not breaking contact for a moment. The creature let out another loud howl, this time riling up his brothers into a frenzy. As soon as the creature got within swiping distance, he launched a slow, yet extremely powerful overhead slash.

The mage waited for the moment that the deadly claw was about to strike him before he summoned his fiery blade with his left hand, and blocked the massive weapon with the flat side of his own. He then summoned his other sword, and with a quick thrust sank it straight into the beasts stomach, without so much as cracking the surrounding shell. The mage gave it a quick twist, wrenching it out of the creature to the side, leaving a large swath. Black blood oozed out of the wound, as the creature fell hard to the floor, a look of shock splayed over his face.

The mage did not stop there however, he knew that the death of their leader would only infuriate his brethren into a maddened frenzy. So stopping the impending assault upon him, he conjured a wave of blackened fire, that engulfed the ring of creatures closest to him. Each one let out a howl of sheer pain, as the fire burned them from the inside; Their thick carapaces serving as a shield to outside burns, but also serving to trap the intense heat inside of them. Those that were not covered by the flames, were quick to abandoned their dying brothers. Intent on their own survival. Satisfied that his work was complete, the mage killed the raging fire, and proceeded down the empty streets, without another bother.

--

The Artain Castle loomed over the city. The ominous obsidian structure kept the city in line with a vice-like grip. Yet, while it was never a happy place, it was always a bustling place. With maids, servants, cooks, and the like doing their respective duties. But now, like the rest of Artai, it was a building of stark silence.

The mage walked the halls in annoyance. The silence ate at him like a ravenous wolf. He had been entrapped in silence, like the rest of his brothers and sisters for more than a millennium. Imprisoned in the cold darkness of the underdark. Now all he longed for was the sounds of battle, the cries of his victims as he killed them one after another. The look on _her_ face as he ran her through. Yet here he was, traversing a deserted castle, doing menial tasks that were so very far beneath him. Though he was not ungrateful that he was the the Dark Lady's most trusted servant. That he was granted the honor of rousing Lord Nathaix, but at the same time he was quite angered. He was a fighter not some sorcerer, like so many of his kind, who had nothing better to do than break bonds. He should be tracking down the High Elven city, and slaughtering their ilk like he and his kind did with the Wood Elves. For what they had done to them.

Sometimes he wondered if his master really did trust him at times. But he quickly quelled his continued thoughts, it would do him no good to question his master. He was a loyal servant, and he would trust her guidance, no matter how much it did not make sense to him. He would trust that the fighting would come soon, and he would look forward to that day longingly. Ready to savor every minute of it.

The mage stopped his walking, as well as his thinking. He had arrived at his destination, a rather massive pair of obsidian doors stood in front of him. Each inlaid with patterns of fine gold, and jewels. A waste of such exquisite treasures, the mage thought as he stared at the gems. Beside the doors stood a pair of men, eunuchs, standing vigilant. The first souls the mage had seen since coming to the city. Both men were garbed in rather unprotective clothing, and held halberds in their hands. They stood looking straight ahead, not even acknowledging the mage's presence. He knew that they were only there out of decoration, rather than actual guards, and so he paid them no heed.

The mage walked forward. As he did the doors glided open noiselessly as if knowing the mage was present. The doorways opened up into a massive throne room. However, while it was once a room lined with golden statues, and magnificent decor. Now it was only a shadow of it's former glory. The once pearly white walls were now a black so dark, it made one think they were looking into an impenetrable void. The statues of lions, tigers, and other great beasts, which once were proud animals, now were horrendously vicious. Looking like they were ready to attack anyone who's gaze lingered to long. The long, floor to ceiling sized windows were all tinted to the point that the room was cast in twilight.

On the opposite side of the room sat a large throne, once made out of gold and velvet, now was made out of the skeletons of those who had once called the palace their homes. The stairs themselves, the skulls of the departed. On either side of the pearly white throne, sat two women, in the peaks of their youth bare skinned. Both with looks as blank as the two men who stood outside the throne room.

The mage walked down the center of the room, straight towards the throne. Upon reaching the seat, he fell to one knee and bowed his head. All was silent for a moment, but the mage kept his ground, unmoving.

"Amal..." A raspy female voice called out from in front of him, "Your back early. Why?" She asked suspiciously.

"Lady Necra." Amal addressed the voice's owner, "I am afraid that I come bearing bad news."

"I see." Amal could tell that he was already off to a bad start, "Very well, what is it?"

"It seems that the elves took great care in sealing Lord Nathiax." Amal paused for a second, mentally preparing himself to break the news to his master, "It seems that they warped his mind, to the point of madness. He was just a mindless beast when he awoke, and slaughtered the others that I had brought with me. I am sorry, but I have failed you." He finished, prostrating himself before the Lich.

There was silence for a moment before Necra spoke, "Raise yourself Amal, that is unnecessary." In a tone, that was surprisingly anger free.

Amal slowly rose himself from his position, rising to stand at full height. Necra wore a robe akin to the one Amal was dressed in, the same half-lidded eye embroider onto the fabric. Forest green hair adorned her head, cut in an odd fashion, with one side far longer than the other. Purple eyes, cold and calculating, peered down at Amal. Bone show clearly through holes in her still recovering skin, and her lower jaw was all but pearly white.

"I am afraid I am somewhat confused, your unholiness." Amal voiced his concern, "Are you not angry?"

"I was when I first felt his death." Necra continued, stepping down from the raised throne.

"You already knew?" Amal asked.

"You forget about the link that I had with Nathiax, Amal. I felt his state of mind, immediately after you had freed him from his chains. It is a fine turn of events indeed. He will rage across the land, sowing death and destruction. And where he kills, we will be there to raise the fallen" Necra responded with a raggedy laugh, "It is not like it is the end of the world my dear. I have plenty of humans to make another sacrifice, once you have found my staff, and I have recovered, I can summon another from the abyss that will follow my will. It is not a hard task."

"I see..." Amal said, hiding his relief.

"Speaking of my staff." Necra proceeded to walk to one of the darkened windows, "Have you found any trace of it yet?"

"Regretfully, no." Amal bowed low in apology, the act going unoticed, "Though I have many of the order out looking for it."

"I thought you said that it was in Kahruhn." Necra asked, turning to stare down Amal, "Isn't that why you felt it necessary to attack it. I'm sure by now it has already circulated to the other kingdoms of elves. It was a risky move to make, and I would be sorely disappointed if you did not find it, at the cost of our cover."

Amal bowed again, "I am terribly sorry again. However it was not far-fetched that the wood elves would have taken it. Even you can admit that the staff would be a tremendous treasure to them. I was certain they would have been it's keepers."

"So then you did not find it." Necra's voice was still as calm as ever, yet Amal knew he was treading on thin ground.

"No." Amal said simply, "I am sorry."

"I see..." Necra turned towards the window again, "Is that all then?"

"Yes, That is all."

"Very well, you may leave. But before you do, I want to make it perfectly clear to you, do not come back until you have found my staff. And make sure it is before the winter snows start to fall." Necra's voice had a very sharp edge to it.

Amal gave a deep bow, "Of course your unholiness. I will take up the search myself."

"See that you are successful." Were Necra's departing words before she vanished into nothingness.

Amal gave a slight sigh before he started out of the throne room, the doors opening themselves up to him as soon as he neared. He walked the silent corridors lost in thought. Mainly on how he would track down Necra's staff. He was quite certain that the High Elves nor their sworn-kin the Dragons would not have taken up the duty of protecting it; For fear that it's magics would corrupt them. The sea elves would have made poor guardians indeed. The dwarves of the Northern Shelf, were highly unlikely to be keepers, since they could not cast nor maintain the spell that kept the magics staff from acting like a beacon to him or Necra.

Which only left the realm of the humans. Which was quite an impossibility to Amal's mind. All of the races blamed the humans for the past war. The Elves even went so far as to make sure magic was wiped from most of their kind, though there were exceptions. Back then, even a child could cast even the rudimentary spells, but now it was a rarety for even one who had studied for years to accomplish the same feat. So for any of the human kingdoms to be the staves protector, was as unlikely as the High Elves letting him waltz straight into their city, and meet with the king. However, it was the only trail he could follow, and so he decided to go with it. Despite how crazy it might have seemed to him.

Amal paused at an open window, a strong wind had started up. Judging from the weather, the mage guessed the snows would be falling even earlier than he could have predicted. He judged that he had at most a month before the onset of the winter season would begin. which meant he had much work to do in an increasingly short amount of time.

He put a hand under his hood, pushing the fabric off his head. A head full of golden hair caught in the wind, and the incredibly long locks blew gracefully behind him, and from beneath that hair sat two perfectly elongated ears, each ending in fine points. A long, and rope-like scar cut a swath diagonally across his otherwise perfectly tuned face. But while he was an incredibly handsome individual, his eyes, iris' and all were a raven black, a sign of his twisted being, marred that beauty into something truly terrible.

With one hand, Amal traced the cut across his face. He would find his master's staff, and then he would find her, and enjoy his long awaited revenge.


	10. Chapter 11

**Chapter 12 - Return**

* * *

"W-What did you say?" Natsuki stuttered out, her normally cool and calm demeanor shattered beyond quick repair. All she could think of was how.

"Is Natsuki really an elf?" Shizuru repeated with a slight smirk. Natsuki froze, unable to utter a response, "So then it's true th-."

"No!" Natsuki burst out suddenly without thinking, "I-I am not an elf." She continued a little calmer, crossing her arms across her chest trying to re-invoke her normal stature. Though in truth she felt like an idiot, and knew, however much she wished otherwise, that she was being wholly unconvincing.

"Is that so?" Shizuru asked rhetorically as she stood up, "I don't believe that." She said, closing the gap between her and Natsuki. The halfling took a slight step back, worried about any intrusion to her personal space.

"Hmph..." Natsuki grunted, she was starting to reassemble her thoughts, "Elves are made up. Only children believe in that stuff."

"How can Elves be made up, if I'm standing right in front of one?" Shizuru questioned.

"I told you! I'm not an elf." Natsuki's cool re-evaporated.

"Then why is Natsuki being so defensive about it?" Shizuru responded.

"I am not being defensive!" Natsuki retorted, before calming herself down again, "Do I look like an elf?" Natsuki asked. She quickly figured that it was going to take more than her word to convince such an obstinate women.

"Hmm..." Shizuru mulled over the question a moment, giving Natsuki a scrutinizing stare making the halfling think that she was on trial, "No, I guess not." Shizuru admitted.

"See, now let's get going. We're wasting time." Natsuki stated. Happy the conversation would be going no further she turned, and started towards where the Beta was sitting.

"But..." Shizuru started, totally ignoring Natsuki's statement, which caused the halfling to stop in her escape, "Just because Natsuki does not look like an elf, Does not mean she is not one. There are ways to change appearances."

Natsuki sighed, "You've got to be kidding me..." She muttered as she turned back towards the princess, "Alright, alright...What do I have to do to convince you then?"

"Make a vow." Shizuru responded quickly, and simply. If Natsuki didn't know better, she could have guessed that the princess was planning this all along.

Natsuki was at a loss of words as to what she could do. She couldn't lie in a vow, and while technically she was a halfling. Being even partly an elf was enough to say that not being an elf would be considered a lie, "I will not."

"Why not? Does Natsuki have something to hide then?"

"I don't. But I'm not going to make a vow over something so stupid." Natsuki wondered if she sounded as idiotic as she was felt.

"Why not? It is not like Natsuki has anything to lose. _Ett ni Ellia (I am not an Elf)_. It's not hard to say." Shizuru spoke slyly, again closing distance between the two women.

Natsuki stood lost in thought, tapping her foot rapidly. She couldn't very well come right out, and say that she was an elf. Yet, she couldn't very well let the princess go around telling people she was indeed an elf, or could she? Natsuki wanted to slap herself hard as she thought about the situation a little more clearly. So what if Shizuru had speculations about the halfling's true nature, no one in their right mind would believe her if she told them.

"Like hell I will." Natsuki said with renewed confidence, "I don't need to prove you otherwise, when you have no proof." She finished smugly, before she turned back towards the beta wolf, glad to be rid of this conversation. The halfling was even happier when no witty retort came from the princess. However, just as she was going to call the beta over. The sound of movement from behind her caused her to stop, and pivot back towards Shizuru just in time to see the princess fully close the distance between the two. To surprised to react, Natsuki felt pressure on her shoulders, and a second later she felt herself falling backwards.

She hit the ground with a distinct thud, a gasp of air escaping her lungs in the process. Though the impact didn't bother the halfling as much as the princess who now was straddling her, with an annoyingly victorious look on her face.

"W-What the hell are you doing?!" Natsuki demanded, as she attempted to get the other women of her. However as she got close to Shizuru's arms Natsuki was harshly greeted by a barrier of intense heat, which forced her hands back.

"Now that I have your undivided attention." Shizuru began with a smirk, "I want the truth."

"Dammit, get off me." Natsuki commanded, she was starting to get annoyed, "I'm not an elf, and you don't have any proof otherwise. So get off." Natsuki repeated, this time with more force behind her voice. In her mind she ran through a myriad of different spells to relieve her of her current condition. Many, if not all of them venturing into the realm of life-threatening for the woman on top of her.

"Proof..." Shizuru mused, making no intent of getting off the halfling anytime soon. Natsuki quickly decided in a psychic blast to render the princess unconscious, which, the halfling thought was infinitively many times better than her other choice. Encasing the woman in an icy prison. But before she released the magic Shizuru spoke, "Would you like to explain what happened down in the ruins yesterday then?"

"What are you talking about?" Natsuki asked genuinely confused, the spell falling into the recesses of her mind, as curiosity overcame here.

"The conversation between you and that man was quite interesting you know." Shizuru answered.

Natsuki was silent for a moment as her mind processed what the princess said. It only took a moment before she connected the dots, "You were awake?!"

Shizuru answered with a nod, and a smile before it changed into a slight frown, "Though sadly I was still bound by his magic, he was quite strong." Her frown turned back into a smile, "Though I'm sure you knew that, having met him before. When was that again? I believe he said centuries ago. Am I right?"

Natsuki faltered, unable to think of a response. As if on cue Shizuru filled the gap in the conversation, "So, would Natsuki like to change her answer now?" She asked as she lowered her face closer to Natsuki's own until all the halfling could see was the princess' face, and a sea of brown hair.

Coupled with a blush that threatened to make her face explode, Natsuki released her psychic attack upon the princess with reckless abandon. Immediately she regretted the action, but there was little she could do now, she just hoped that she hadn't sent the poor woman into an irreversible coma. The halfling felt the blast assault Shizuru's mind, and watched as she hovered above Natsuki silent, and unmoving for what seemed like forever to the halfling. The princess muttered something that even the halfling couldn't make out before she passed out on top of Natsuki, succumbing to the attack, and falling into a deep sleep that only the halfling would be able to bring her out of.

Natsuki sighed as she carefully rolled the princess off of her. She felt slightly remorseful that she had used such a tactic against the woman, but she quickly resolved to herself that extreme situations required extreme action, and, she also resolved that at least she hadn't killed the princess. Which was somewhat a cause to celebrate for the halfling. Though it was most likely due to the fact that she needed the princess for her own survival. However, even though she thought that, a nagging feeling that, that wasn't the only reason tugged at the recess of her mind.

Unable to clearly define the elusive thought, Natsuki quickly quelled the pursuit of the topic. Taking a deep breath she stood, giving a few stretches before she turned to where the Alpha and Beta wolves were still conversing to one another. Immediately she noticed that both wolves were studying her intently, and immediately she wondered what the reason could be. However she had her prioties, and trying to understand dire wolves' trains of thought were not among them at this current point in time. Wanting to hurry, and be rid of this jungle she gave the Beta a wave. The Beta in turn nodded his large head, said one final word to the Alpha, and made his way over to the halfling.

_Are you ready to go now? _ The beta asked, as he neared Natsuki.

"Yes." Natsuki responded formally, strengthening the statement with a nod.

_Very well. _The Beta responded, Natsuki noticed his gaze linger upon her for a fraction of second longer than necessary. But she didn't say anything, and neither did the massive wolf. Instead he lay to the ground to let her climb upon his back, _Let us be off then. We will not arrive at your destination until evening at this rate. _The tone of his voice sounded slightly annoyed. But Natsuki wasn't insulted by the fact, it was highly understandable that the Beta would be so, ferrying people about wasn't generally an activity the proud race of wolves were accustomed to. Even if an elf was his passenger.

Natsuki nodded, and in one fluid motion picked up Shizuru, and leaped upon the furry back of the Beta. She adjusted herself, and Shizuru to be as comfortable as possible upon the Beta's back, a feat that proved to be quite hard to accomplish. However she managed to find adequate positioning, and told the Beta that she was ready to be on her way.

_Very well. _The Beta started, _Elvish one, the small one is going to go with you, correct? _He asked.

"Y-Yes." Natsuki responded a bit startled. She had totally forgotten about her agreement with the Alpha wolf. No thanks to Shizuru's little stunt.

_I thought so._ The Beta let loose a loud bark in the pup's direction, and with a bark of her own the pup jumped up from her resting place excitedly. Then, without any notice, the Beta took off into the dense foliage, almost sending both Natsuki, and Shizuru off his back.

--

The Beta wasn't lying when he said that they wouldn't arrive at the ruin site until evening. In fact he even lied somewhat, seeing as how the twin moons were already starting to converge. Signaling to the world that it was nearing midnight. The Beta had even been in a constant run the entire time, and still it had taken so long to reach their destination. Natsuki was surprised to say the least that she had managed to teleport herself, and the princess so far away even after her battle with Amal.

Then without notice the Beta stopped, but as far as Natsuki could tell, the ruins, nor the crater it was located in were anywhere in sight, "Where are we?" Natsuki called out to the Beta.

_I am sorry forest one. This is as far as I _go. The Beta apologized sincerely,_ The taint is to strong past this point. I cannot go on, however the place you seek is not to far off. Just continue straight from here, you will reach there within the hour. _

"I see...Well, thank you for your help. I greatly appreciate it." Natsuki thanked the Beta, as she climbed off his back with Shizuru in tow.

_It is no problem forest one. I am sorry I cannot be of more help. I must get back to the pack, Take care Elf. May we meet again. _The Beta said before he took off back the way they had come without another word.

Natsuki watched him go, and sighed. While she was thankful for his help, she really wished that he had taken her all the way to the ruins. But what was done was done, and Natsuki resigned herself to the fact that she would have to walk the rest of the way to the ruins. From behind her, the dire wolf pup strode up to Natsuki, panting. The halfling was impressed that the pup had managed to keep up with the Beta's strenuous pace for the entirety of the journey.

"Might as well get a move on..." Natsuki mumbled to no one in particular. If what the Beta said was true, she still had a long way to go on foot before she reached her target. Hoisting Shizuru upon her back, and invoking her Elvish sight, Natsuki started her trek through the darkness.

--

What started as an uphill battle with the dense foliage soon turned into a very eerie walk through dead groves. All life was gone from this place, the once thick and lush foliage that covered the ground had decayed completely. And while the trees tried to hang on, and cling to their leaves, Natsuki could tell that they were already far to gone to save. Even the wolf pup stuck as close as possible to the halfling, and every now and then Natsuki heard the pup whine softly to the complete silence of their surroundings.

Peering through the dense foliage above Natsuki found that the moons had passed their convergence quite some time ago. Meaning she had to be nearing her destination. Deeming it as good a time as any, Natsuki set Shizuru down upon the ground, and with a simple wave of her hand dismissed the spell keeping the princess asleep. The halfling figured it would help to keep her from having to answer any questions about where they had been, and that it would be far less conspicuous than walking into whatever camp the other knights may have set up with a passed out princess on her back.

"Ugh..." Shizuru groaned as she came to, "W-What happened to me?" She asked no one in particular as she brought her hand to her head.

"You passed out." Natsuki said simply, hoping that the princess might believe her.

"Did I?" Shizuru questioned herself more than Natsuki, before she made a move to stand up, "I can't remember..." She said finally managing to get to her feet after some effort.

Natsuki stared at Shizuru for a second, before she grinned internally. She had been fearing that as soon as the princess had woken, the events that had transpired would have just repeated themselves. But it seemed that her overly powerful spell had caused some short-term memory loss, which suited the halfling just fine.

"Don't worry about it." Natsuki said with secretive stress, before she helped the princess become a little more stable on her feet, "Let's get moving, were close to the others. The sooner we get there, the faster we can get back home." She wanted to hurry, and get back before the princess started remembering.

Shizuru was silent for a moment, Natsuki could only guess to as why, before she spoke, "All right then. Let us be on our way." Natsuki let out a silent grateful sigh.

Setting a pace to match Shizuru's current state, the three seemingly crawled along through the jungle. However Natsuki's judgment that they had indeed been close when she awoke the princess proved true, and it wasn't long before the trio came to the edge of the crater that housed the ruins.

"Oh my..." Natsuki heard Shizuru exclaim, which drew the halfling's attention to the lip of the steep decline where Shizuru was standing.

"What is i-" Natsuki stopped midsentance as she took a look at what Shizuru had pointed out. The ruins were gone. In it's place was a giant hole. Natsuki guessed her little stunt had causing a massive cave in. However she could have cared less about the state of the ruins, instead she looked for any semblance of a camp fire, or other signs of living lives in the expansive clearing. Though she found none. Cursing to herself silently, the halfling started to decline the slope, however stopped when she heard the low growl of the wolf pup.

"Who's there? Identify yourselves!" A man's voice echoed from the darkness. Turning the halfling saw Reito standing with spear ready. Natsuki wondered how he could have gotten the drop on them, considering he was standing right where they had just come from.

"Kiyo, shush." Shizuru ordered the pup, who immediately listened. Natsuki marvled at the spectacle, "Brother is that you?" The princess asked stepping foreward slightly.

At Shizuru's voice, Natsuki noticed Reito relax a bit, "Shizuru." He started with a relieved sigh, "Thank the gods. I thought we had lost you." He continued, lowering his weapon, "Where have you been?" He asked, before he muttered a light spell, which illuminated the area, and allowed Natsuki to return to her normal vision. However, as soon as the light filled the area Reito immediately returned to his ready stance, "What the hell is that thing?!" He exclaimed, indicating the dire wolf pup.

"Relax brother, This is Kiyo. She's just a pup, she won't hurt you." Shizuru answered with a small, polite laugh.

"That's a pup?" Reito asked disbelieving, though he did lower his weapon, "Would you care to explain where you met such a beast, as well as where exactly you have been?"

Shizuru was silent for a moment before she answered, "Not now Reito, It has been somewhat tiring. Where are the others, I would like to go home as soon as possible."

Reito regarded Shizuru for a moment, then moved his gaze to Natsuki herself. The halfling couldn't help but assume that he distrusted her. Then with a sigh he spoke, "Very well. I sent the others to comb the forest on their own. I gave them each a recall stone, and told them to return by themselves after the three-day mark. We can go back ourselves now."

"Excellent." Shizuru responded.

"Here..." Reito said unhooking a small leather pouch from his sword-belt. Shizuru reached her hand out, and the prince dumped out three sapphire looking stones into her palm. He took one from himself, before he fastened the belt pouch back onto his belt, "I will see you back at the castle." He said simply, before he stepped back from Natsuki, and Shizuru. He threw his small gem onto the ground, and it shattered enveloping the prince in a blue glow. The glow only lasted a moment before it faded away, along with the prince.

"Alright then..." Shizuru spoke, turning to Natsuki, "Shall we go back then?" She asked rhetorically, "Stay close Kiyo." She said to the wolf pup who answered with a bark.

Natsuki sighed, not really wanting to go back to the confines of Fuuka Castle. But seeing as how she had little choice she closed the distance between herself, and the princess. As soon as she did, Shizuru threw both of the recall stones at the ground. They shattered, and enveloped the three in it's light. Natsuki felt her stomach turn, before her feet left the ground, and she lost all feeling. The next time she felt, she would be back in Fuuka, for better or for worse.

* * *

**Author's Notes: **So...after a long hiatus, school is finally out for moi. No school, and subsequently no work I have no big plans over this summer. So hopefully I will have much more free time to focus on writing for enjoyment, rather than it being a cruel method of torture. As long as Age of Conan doesn't turn my summer into MMO Nerdfest 2008, I should be good. (Cross your fingers).


	11. Chapter 12

**Chapter 13 – Promotion**

Natsuki sat rather nervously in one of the many oversized mahogany chairs that ringed the large gold plated war-room table. The halfling however hid her unease well from the rest of the rooms occupants. To her immediate right sat a very stoic looking Shizuru, and across from them sat both King Ferir, and Prince Reito.

It was very early in the morning, Natsuki had scarcely five hours of sleep since she, and the others had returned to the capital city. Fighting back a yawn, Natsuki wondered what they were waiting for. The group had been sitting in silence for what seemed like nearly a quarter of an hour. She was about to question the very fact, however the King beat her to the punch.

With a loud clearing of his throat, Ferir stood, the chair making a loud grating noise against the stone floor, "Well, it seems our good commander will not be joining us this morning." He started, walking to a nearby window, "So we will continue without her." He paused for a long moment before continuing, "I assume you both know why you are here. So I'm just going to right out, and say it. What exactly happened in that forest?"

"Father, we merely went to investigate the inside of the ruins." Shizuru responded plainly. Natsuki was shocked at the princess' audacity.

"Then how do you explain the massive cave in, and you going missing for nearly two days?" Reito asked sarcastically.

"Please Reito, let me ask the questions." Ferir told his son, turning away from the window, and back to the center of the room, "Now Shizuru, I don't want any of your usual antics here today. I want the full story, exclude no details. No one is leaving this room until I hear it from your own mouth." The king said straightly, as he sat back down in his own chair.

Silence permeated the stifling room, and Natsuki's unease only fed, and grew stronger in the situation. She thought briefly of coming clean, but quickly quelled the rogue idea. Instead she started to to think whether or not she was going insane. The halfling took a deep breath to calm herself down, she was overthinking things as usual. There was no way anyone would believe Shizuru if she told the truth, so she had nothing to worry about. Or at least that was what she wanted to believe, there was no telling what kind of things these people might believe. Hell, if the princess was any sort of indication, then there had to be something abnormal about the family as a whole Natsuki reasoned.

Thankfully however Shizuru broke the silence finally, "It was my fault, Father. I wanted to explore the ruins as soon as I was able." Natsuki had to keep to fight the look of surprise from showing on her face at the princess' remark.

"I don't believe that for a second." Reito quickly answered, "You were suffering from exhaustion, and it was only the two of you. I know you sister, you are smarter than that, what are you hiding?" Though she didn't really want to admit it, Natsuki had to give the prince some credit for his rebuttal.

"Yes Shizuru, your brother has a point." Ferir agreed with the prince, "Would you care to explain yourself?"

"Well..." Shizuru began, taking in a deep and audibly breath, "First, and foremost, I thought I was more than capable to enter the ruins on my own volition. Secondly, the ruins were a labyrinth of tight tunnels, and sharp corners. You were inside of them as well Reito, you cannot say that traveling inside that complex with a large party would be anything short of folly." Shizuru paused, waiting for the prince to respond to her.

Reito peered at the princess for a moment before he sighed, "You are right, despite the idiocy. Having a small group would be far more reasonable than a large one."

"See, so I was not so wrong when I decided that the two of us." Shizuru indicated Natsuki before she continued, "Would be just fine inside."

"Hmm..." Ferir mused, "You there..." The king pointed to Natsuki, "Is what she saying true. Did she propose to go into the ruins?"

"Ah..." Natsuki stalled, she wasn't expecting to have to answer anything, she had been more than content with being a passive observer to the events unfolding. She looked to the princess for a moment, before deciding that she should just go along with whatever the women was planning, "Yes, your highness."

"And did you say anything against this?" The king questioned, "Surely you were afraid of going inside, especially since you are unable to use magic."

Natsuki shook her head, "No. I don't think I should have to question an order when it comes from royalty. Nor do I think my fear should be allowed to overcome me,Your highness." She figured that if she was going to go along with the princess' story, she might as well make it good.

"Ahahaha." Ferir let out a roar of a laugh, "Spoken like a true knight. If only we had a few more who thought like that." Ferir continued, oblivious to the truth, "Ahem," Ferir cleared his throat when the rest of the room was silent, "Well then, moving on. Continue with your story Shizuru. Leave no detail out."

"Very well then Father, I will tell you everything. We entered the ruins from what looked like the main entrance. However as we traveled deeper, and deeper in we did not come across any traces of the excavation team nor of any sort of undead creature. So we kept going farther inwards. Eventually we came across a haphazard stash of Airies armaments hidden in a back room, and that's when we were attacked. There were at least a dozen of the things, they blocked the only exit out of the room. In retrospect they must have been waiting for us to come to a dead-end room. It really is quite amazing how smart they were, I had always thought undead were quite dull, and slow myself." Shizuru paused for a short break, and Natsuki couldn't help but think that the women could put even the best bards to shame. Though she kept the slightly amusing thought well away from her facial features, as she listened on with outward passiveness.

Clearing her throat Shizuru continued her tale, "Seeing as how we were trapped in a very small room, with no real way to fight back. I let loose a spell to take care of the lot in one attack. The fireball, and subsequent explosion did what I had intended to do, however I did not foresee the repercussions the attack had. It seemed that the ground beneath the ruins had long since given away, and it was quite remarkable that the ruins had not collapsed already. Because of the explosion the flooring broke apart almost instantaneously, and sent both of us falling through a large hole." Shizuru paused for another break, and Natsuki wondered how exactly she had come up with such a story. However, looking at Ferir, it seemed that the princess had him enthralled, which is right where she wanted him, the halfling assumed.

The room was quiet, as everyone waited for Shizuru continued, even Natsuki herself was somewhat wondering what the princess was going to come up with next, "We fell quite a ways down, before the pit opened up into a massive cavern, filled with a veritable sea of water. And thankfully it was water, and not earth. The cold liquid broke our fall, though not without it's own complications. If Natsuki had not been there with me, I surely would have drowned because of the weight of my armor. Thankfully she managed to pull me to a safety upon a nearby rock."

"After getting over the initial shock of our predicament, we tried to discern an exit from the cavern. However, it was much to big, and so we could not find anything through the darkness. But it was Natsuki, who noticed that the water was not staying to still like an enclosed body of water such as this would naturally be. Instead she noticed that it was flowing steadily in one direction. Deciding that anything would be better than freezing to death in the frigid water, I shed my armor, and we made our way with the flow. As luck would have it, it was only a short swim to our very destination, a path carved by years of erosion sat into the cavern wall. A layer of water flowed through the tunnel, but luckily it was no so deep that we could not walk through it."

"Not having any other options, we started our trek down the dark pathway, unsure of if it would actually bring us to a way out. We walked for what seemed like hours through the darkness, and just when we thought we were never going to make it out, the path opened up to the outside. A river sat at the other end, and the sky was dark. We were to exhausted to think of anything else, and so we made camp. We would decide how to make it back to the ruins when we were rested."

"River? What river?" Reito interrupted suspiciously, "I have never heard of a River in that forest."

"Much of the world is undocumented on paper. Just because it is not on a piece of paper does not mean that it is not there in reality." Shizuru effectively shut the prince up.

"Going on..." Shizuru said with a small cough to clear her throat, "In the morning, I had still not recovered fully, at least not fully enough to bring us both back to the ruins. So, after figuring out where we were in relation to the ruins I teleported us as close as possible. Which was not very close may I add. We had to walk the rest of the way, which took us the entire day, as Reito can tell you since we met him after midnight."

"That's quite a story sister." Reito spoke leaning on the table with his elbows, "But, that does not explain the beast that you brought back with you."

"Kiyo is not a beast." Shizuru retorted calmly.

"Yes son, dire wolves are not to be mixed up with normal wolves." Ferir said with a nod, "But Shizuru, how did you exactly come to find such a creature. They are quite a rare sight, especially when humans are involved. I am sure that you acquiring such a pup could not have been an accident." Natsuki cocked an eye at the King's statement. She wondered how the man would have known such a fact.

"I do not know what to tell you father." Shizuru replied without missing a beat, "As we were walking through the forest we came across her. She was alone, we meant to leave her be, but she followed."

"Is that so..." Ferir mused aloud, somehow Natsuki didn't think that the King believed his daughter at all, "No matter, I guess it doesn't really make much of a difference either way." He said before he stood again, "You know Shizuru, that's really quite the story." He sounded slightly grave to Natsuki, whom immediately thought that he hadn't believed a word of it. However her thoughts proved false when the a wide smile spread across his face and he spoke in an over the top jovial mode, "Sounds just like the adventures I had when I was your age. Ahahaha!" He ended in a laugh so strong his face started to turn beet red.

"Father?!" Reito exclaimed surprised, "How can you believe in that ridiculous story? Surely she is not telling the truth."

"Oh, come now my boy." Ferir calmed down slightly, "She's back, and no worse for wear. Which is all that really matters to me. There is no need to know exactly what happened."

Reito was silent, "I guess your right." He said grudgingly.

"Of course I am son." Ferir said with another laugh, "However!" He exclaimed as he pointed to Natsuki, "You there..." He paused for a moment, "What's your name again?"

"Natsuki, Your highness." The halfling responded, slightly confused.

"Is it true that you saved my daughter's life?" He asked.

"Eh?" Natsuki faltered for a split second before she caught herself, "Y-Yes, I guess so."

"Guess so?!" Ferir roared, "Be a little more confident woman!" He again calmed down, Natsuki wondered how such a person was the king of this country, "Ahem, excuse that. What I mean is that, if you saved my daughter's life, you should be rewarded as such."

"I don't think that's really necessary, Your Highness. I just did what any knight would have." Natsuki replied.

"Nonsense!" Ferir said walking around the table to Natsuki, "Do not be so modest. Would you care to stand up please?" The halfling complied wondering what the King had in mind, "Good, now face me." Natsuki complied again.

"Now, En garde!" The King shouted out, and from the great big sleave of his robe pulled out a shortsword. With a lightening quick sideswipe, which Natsuki was amazed by thinking that he was just some old man, he attacked the halfling. However, while the man was fast for his age, he couldn't keep up with Natsuki's elvish qualities. Her instincts taking over, Natsuki dodged the blow by ducking then grabbed Ferir's arm, and with a quick toss. She both disarmed the man, and sent him to the ground in one fluid motion.

Ferir let out another roar of a laugh as he stood, "Excellent, Excellent. Just as I thought. You really are quite something, my dear. Perfect candidate for the spot."

"Spot?" Natsuki asked confused.

"Yes, yes, spot." He repeated, dusting off his clothes, "You see, I have been trying to fill the position for quite sometime now. However, everyone I interview never seems good enough, but you my dear. You seem to fit the bill perfectly, and since it seems that you two get along so well. It just makes sense, you know."

"Y-Yeah..." Natsuki responded, though in truth she didn't know what the hell the King was talking about at all.

"Good, good. At least we're on the same page. So you will accept then? You will have full roam of the castle, and many privileges. And to think, you were just a common sell-sword a couple days ago, it must be fate, eh?" Ferir said clapping Natsuki on the back, before he took his sword out of the halflings hands.

"What am I accepting?" Natsuki asked utterly confused.

"Oh dear me, did I not say it?" Ferir sounded generally confused, "I guess I really am getting quite old. From henceforth, you shall be my darling daughter's personal bodyguard."

"What?!" Natsuki exclaimed.

"Oh,ho. I knew you would be excited." Ferir laughed, "I won't take no for an answer, just so you know. And around here my word is the law."

"Isn't that great Natsuki? Now we can be together, all the time." Shizuru's voice resounded from behind Natsuki.

Natsuki couldn't speak, she had had enough of the princess for the rest of her eternal life. Yet now she was going to be forced to spend every waking moment with the infernal woman. She wondered if her life could get any worse.

"See, look kids. She's speechless." Ferir laughed, "Though it's to be expected, this is quite the promotion."

"I-I don't think I'm qualified for the job, Your Highness." Natsuki responded as adamantly as she could.

"Cold feet eh?" Ferir laughed, before he turned to Reito, and Shizuru, "Do you mind leaving for a moment, while I go over the job, and get this girl to see why she should accept."

"Yes, Father." Both Shizuru, and Reito replied in unison, and both got up to leave the room.

Shizuru paused at the door, "Take care Natsuki, I hope to see you later." She said with a grin, and shut the door.

"See Natsuki, look how excited she is. You wouldn't want to disappoint her now would you?" Ferir asked as he walked to the door, and Natsuki had to fight back from saying yes, "However, now that those two are gone. There is something I would wish to speak with you about." Ferir shifted from being over joyful, to deathly serious in an instant. Natsuki suddenly found out where the princess had received that particular trait.

"What of?" Natsuki asked suspiciously.

"Well..." Ferir started, and locked the door, the click ringing through the room.

"What are you doing?"

"I don't want any interruptions for this one." Ferir replied. He walked from the door, to a window on the opposite side of the room in silence. The uncomfortable noise continued for what seemed like ages to the halfling before Ferir sighed and spoke, "-What exactly happened in those ruins?-"

* * *

**Author's Note**: For anyone that might not remember, any speech in the format "-words, words, and m ore words-" is used for elvish.


End file.
